Degassing Bottled Wine

So, I screwed up. . . In my haste to get a couple batches of wine into bottles and out of the carboys, it appears that I bottled it either before it was completely done fermenting or I just didn't degas well enough before bottling. No matter how it happened, the wines (Noiret and DeChaunac aged 10 months in bottle) have a definite fizz in the glass and tickle on the tongue. Although the flavor of both wines is pretty nice, the fizz is just distracting and off-putting. I'm trying to figure out how to get rid of the extra gas in suspension. I have considered just transferring the wines from the bottles back into a bucket, degassing the traditional way and then rebottling. However, even if I lay down a blanket of CO2 over the wines, I'm still afraid of oxidizing them. I've also thought about using a sanitized bottle brush to degas bottles one at a time. As well as uncorking each bottle, heating it up to around 100*F and using a wine preserver pump to create a vacuum and suck the gas out of solution. I've tried both methods and neither one works all that well. Not to mention, I worry about the effects of heat on the wine. Does anyone have any ideas on how I might degas these wines? I will try just about anything at this point. Thanks for any help you can offer.

I would open them all up and put them back in your carboy or bucket.

Is the wine preserver pump very strong? I have no experience with them...
But I've seen several discussions on degassing bulk lately suggest a handheld vacuum pump.
There are 2 methods,
1: if you have a food vacuum sealer with the jar port you can use that.
2: Got to an auto parts store and get a Brake Bleeder Kit and rig that up

I haven't tried either of these yet, but there have been good responses on the board. I'll be using the brake bleeder method when I am ready. Maybe see if you can hold that vacuum for a while to let it fiz out.

Vac-u-Vin works well, just keep pumping until the bubbles quit.

Pouring through an aerator will also work pretty well.

This is the pump that I used. It does OK. But it doesn't pull all of the gas out of solution. I found that heating the wine in a water bath before creating a vacuum helped a little. But, I'm not sure what effect that will have on the wine. Good call on the bleeder kit. Though, I'm not sure if I want to spend $40 on something unless I know it will work. I think pouring into a bucket and degassing is probably my best plan of attack. Hopefully I can keep it covered with CO2 as I transfer. Should I add another dose of meta before rebottling or is there still enough in solution from the addition at the time of the first bottling? Thanks for the help.

mrkstel said:

This is the pump that I used. It does OK. But it doesn't pull all of the gas out of solution. I found that heating the wine in a water bath before creating a vacuum helped a little. But, I'm not sure what effect that will have on the wine. Good call on the bleeder kit. Though, I'm not sure if I want to spend $40 on something unless I know it will work. I think pouring into a bucket and degassing is probably my best plan of attack. Hopefully I can keep it covered with CO2 as I transfer. Should I add another dose of meta before rebottling or is there still enough in solution from the addition at the time of the first bottling? Thanks for the help.

Click to expand...

I'd get the bottles someplace warm first. Then I'd gently pour the bottles in the carboy, and dose with k-meta right away. Remember that if the k-meta binds to the wine, then oxygen can't. After the wine is sulfited, then I'd proceed with degassing and rebottling.

mrkstel said:

Does anyone have any ideas on how I might degas these wines? I will try just about anything at this point. Thanks for any help you can offer.

Click to expand...

Reprocessing in bulk or vacuuming each bottle as others have suggested is probably your best options. However, there's risk with both of these procedures as you well know, plus the labor involved.

Since the wine sounds as though it's slightly fizzy, have you experimented with one of those bottle aerators? The ones that are design to force the wine to breathe when it's poured slowly into your glass. I've found pouring a bright wine through one of these can take the edge off of lingering carbonation. It may provide enough effect to salvage your vino without further complexity.

Yooper: Thanks for the advice. That is kind of what I plan to do at this point. I just don't think there is any effective way to do this in a bottle. It's always great to have one of HBT's resident gurus chime in.

Sudz: The wine is a little more than slightly fizzy. It is quite off-putting. I would liken it to around the level of carbonation found in a cask ale, maybe a bit less than that. I have tried the aerator and it was not effective in the least. Thanks for the suggestion though.

Operation 'Gas-X' will probably happen this weekend. Wish me luck and thanks for the suggestions.

I would vote for the suggestion of pouring it back into a sanitized carboy, adding a proper dose of sulphite, and degassing per usual methods.... Maybe even let it sit a few days under airlock, and then re-bottle it up.

With a vacuum system - if you don't have sulphite in there, oxygen will re-enter the wine... Air does a pretty good job of absorbing back into wine if you give it a chance....

Thanks

John

why don't you just try Pasteurizing the bottles:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/easy-stove-top-pasteurizing-pics-193295/

because it would damage the wine and pasteurization won't remove all of the co2

WIP said:

because it would damage the wine and pasteurization won't remove all of the co2

Click to expand...

That, and I'd be afraid that the co2 at a higher temperature would blow out off of the corks. Remember, the gas is in there. If you raise the temperature, the gas is still trapped by the corks. That means either the corks or the glass would blow because they aren't designed to hold pressure.

True, I was picturing it with the cork removed.

I've experimented with heating the bottles. Not to pasteurization temps, but to about 100*F with the corks pulled (I'm not a big fan of heating sealed vessels in any case. . . Especially when said vessels are made of glass). Some CO2 did come out of solution but not all of it. Even adding negative pressure via the wine preserver pump didn't remove all of it. I think that Yooper's method above is probably the best, safest course of action. Hopefully, I will get to it this weekend sometime between brewing an oatmeal stout (your recipe, Yooper), starting a batch of cyser and attending a bachelor party. Oh, and SWMBO wants me to organize my brew area (Yeah, that is going to happen. . .) Wish me luck. . .

I know this is off topic, but I thought I would put it out there. One of these wines is a relatively new variety called Noiret. I purchased it here, a great place if you are looking for pressed juice. I decided to try it on a whim just to see how the wine would turn out. Granted, this wine is just under a year old. But here are my impressions so far. First the color is a BEAUTIFUL deep ruby red. The aroma is fruity with notes of Concorde grape, cherry and a spice that I can't quite place. The flavor is, in word, "grapey", like Smucker's grape jelly, just less sweet (FG of the wine was 1.001). I did MLF on this batch and so there are some buttery flavors as well. I probably won't ferment this variety again (I like my Smucker's on toast with peanut butter, not in my wine glass ). But if I were to do it again, I would consider a light dose of oak. Hopefully, the wine will improve once it is properly degassed and aged. But at this point it is just too fruity for me. Anyway, that's my $0.02 on Noiret.

EDIT: Moved this to its own thread

As per my local wine kit store that sells fresh grapes and fresh juice, one way to quickly degas is to pour the wine from a high height between two big 23L+ pails a few times to create a violent pour. They still do this when they feel strong enough this old school process works.

Warm the wine first a day or two ahead by putting in the warmest place in your house or make a tent with a blanket and a heater to hold in the heat. Then proceed quickly since you need to re-bottle the wine so adding more Potassium Metabisulfate would help prevent oxidation.

You could try doing a violent pour just before serving to hopefully remove the excess gas as it foams up. Might be the easiest solution if it works. I recently tried a commercial white that had excess gas exactly as you described. Just told everyone it was a sparkling wine...

Anyone ever try de-gassing a bottle of wine by sticking a needle through the cork?

Thanks, Jaimes Beam