Carb'd wine! Oops

A few months ago I made my first batch of mustang grape wine (semisweet red). Seems I didn't do that good of a job. One of the corks was bulging, so I opened it without a cork screw. Just the shrink wrap was holding the cork in. Its only been bottled 2months and 3 out of 5 bottles seem to be carbonated.

Any ideas were I went wrong or if it can be saved?
It is unsafe to let it try to become vinegar?

I am not a winemaker but it seems you did not let it finish fermenting before bottling. A byproduct of fermentation is CO2 and when fermentation happens in a closed environment like the bottle, the co2 will be absorbed by the wine/beer, resulting in carbonation.

Check the taste. If it's normal and tastes like wine, and is just carbonated, then like mrduna01 said, it sounds like the ferementation didn't finish.
If it's starting to taste sour, then you did get something infected and you'll be getting a vinegar at some point.

Figure out which is happening first since carbonation doesn't necessarily mean vinegar.

#2, you're going to want to do something to those, whatever the case may be, because if they are packaged in wine bottles, which it sounds like, then you're not going to want those in there for long, due to the burst hazard.

What was your process? (OG and FG too) You *might* be able to get away with venting and recorking, with minimal loss of the blanket co2 and oxidation/infection if it's just co2 release, more trouble if it's still fermenting. (however if it's vinegar, you'll be doing something else.)

Sparkling red wine? Sounds interesting.

Hell_Fish said:

A few months ago I made my first batch of mustang grape wine (semisweet red). Seems I didn't do that good of a job. One of the corks was bulging, so I opened it without a cork screw. Just the shrink wrap was holding the cork in. Its only been bottled 2months and 3 out of 5 bottles seem to be carbonated.

Any ideas were I went wrong or if it can be saved?
It is unsafe to let it try to become vinegar?

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It would be helpful to know the gravity at which the wine was bottled at as well.

Sorry, I didn't take gravity reading with this batch (first time for wine, and hadn't brewed in 7 or 8 years). It taked like selzer water. Made my tongue feel weird for a few hours.

Hell_Fish said:

Sorry, I didn't take gravity reading with this batch (first time for wine, and hadn't brewed in 7 or 8 years). It taked like selzer water. Made my tongue feel weird for a few hours.

Click to expand...

Assuming you used decent sanitation practices its not likely you got any kind of infection. Other than the fizziness does it taste like wine? It's very likely that the wine fermented in the bottle. About all you can do is as carefully as possible get the bottles back in to your bottling bucket and let it settle and degas it over a week or so than try to rebottle. Someone else may have a better solution.

I like to believe my sanitation practices are good. I tend to use B-brite like its going out of style. The first bottle Im going to let it go to vinegar. Been wanting to try it for a while. The other 2 I will get back into a one gallon glass container and cap with an airlock and let it gas out. Thanks