Topping Off

I just got done bottling my 1st batch of wine, which happened to be a Cellar Craft Pinot Grigio kit. I have a question:

1. The kit size was 15L which means it was mostly juice, and only required a gallon or two of water to get it up to level in the primary. I followed the kit instructions to the letter and racked when SG was reached. I have been monitoring the taste and it seems to taste watered down. My question is, when racking to the carboy, you are required to top off to within an inch or two of the bung. Should I top off with wine, or water, and if I top off with wine, doesn't adding multiple bottles of wine defeat the purpouse of making your own kit? Any help is appreciated.

:rockin:

The kits instruct you to top off with water. Adding water is "built in" to the recipe kit so it's expected that you'd use water.

The wine kits I've done have all been 6 gallon kits that are topped up with water after degassing (the reason you don't fill up at the very beginning- degassing causes quite a bit of foam, and needs the headspace).

In making your own wines (not from a kit), you usually topped up immediately after primary since there isn't usually a degassing step and you want to protect the wine from any oxygen in the headspace. After several rackings, you may then use some like wine to top up. I've used older dandelion wine to top up dandelion, for example. I also usually make a bit more than what my carboy holds, and put the remainder in a sanitized wine bottle with an airlock, and use that for topping up.

For kits, though, they are meant to be done according to the instructions, so you wouldn't add commercial wine.

Thanks for the advice. I was concerned mostly because I felt the finished product tasted like watered down Pinot. Do you think that aging it a couple of more weeks will improve that?

ruggierm1 said:

Thanks for the advice. I was concerned mostly because I felt the finished product tasted like watered down Pinot. Do you think that aging it a couple of more weeks will improve that?

Click to expand...

Absolutely. It'll get better with a bit of time in the bottle.

So, if you crack one open in a month, that should be about right. They seem to peak at about 1 year old or so.

Thank you so much. As you can tell, I'm a noobie, and I just want to make sure I'm doing the right thing, so that I have a good finished product.