Opened a Brunello...

I bottled a Brunello in April and my wife suggested we open one with our Italian dinner last night to see how it was doing.

It is a little thin, too bright to be a Brunello, but those qualities will improve with another 9 months in the bottle, I assume. The color and clarity are outstanding, and the aroma is spot-on.

The only issue I have is it is tremendously gassy! I stirred and stirred and vacuumed and vacuumed, but still get lots of acidic bite and lots of foam.

I Vac-u-Vin'ed about 15 times before it quit bubbling and it tastes much less acidic.

I checked all of the readings and it was done before bottling, at least I thought it was.

This was an expensive kit and I followed the directions to a T.

Will the gas go away in the bottle in 9 more months, or am I screwed?

After this weeks Chardonnay bottling mishap (dropped the end of the siphon hose into the settled fines with a gallon left in the carboy) and this gas problem, I may break down and buy a filtering system. I understand that a filter will get any remaining gas out.

For a kit wine, 6 months in the bottle should be enough for an enjoyable quaff, though longer is better (up to a point, unless you added some additional stabilizer at bottling).

What type of kit did you use? Aside from a bit of a disaster with a crushendo kit which I won't use again (ironically, also a Brunello), I've had good results with the WineXpert Selection series (Estate, Ltd, International).

RJ SPAGNOL'S CRU SELECT

Taste is OK, but the gas, yikes!

That's why I like to bulk age. I don/t know how well it'll degass in the bottle.