Racking dillemma

[ratters]

Hi all,

I have a situation where I wouldn't mind a bit of advice. I just put on a new batch of Blackberry wine, its been in the primary for 2 days and I now find that I will be travelling away from home and wont be back for 5 weeks.

So either it will get a ~4 day ferment and I rack it before I leave or I let it sit with all the berries for 5 weeks. Im not sure what's worse, I really wanted a full bodied wine this time around with maybe a 2 week primary on the berries but 5 weeks is probably way overdoing it and asking for trouble?

Anyone have experience with this? I only make one Blackberry wine per year so I really dont want to mess this up, but i WILL be slightly disappointed to rack it so soon. Do you think there is potential for funky flavours to develop?

Cheers!

 

[Yooper]

I generally go 5-7 days on the fruit, as once it's fermented it gets pretty icky by then. I think you can be safe to move it to secondary by day 4, but I'd check the SG to ensure it's below 1.020 or so if possible.