Newbie question?

I have a Pinot Nero that's been in the bottle for about six weeks. I opened a bottle to test it out. The color looks good, smells good, tastes good. The only issue there seems to be is that there is a very slight fizzy/carbonation taste after you take a swig. There is no visible carbonation at all. Is this something that will fade after a few months in the bottle? I followed all directions to the T and de gassed very well. I'm an experienced beer brewer but new to wine, it's for the wifey! Any thoughts?

 

You may not have gassed nearly enough.
Also without knowing the age of the wine or your process it will be difficult to find the root of the issue.

I rack numerous times with a vacuum pump over the course of a year as my method of degassing. I have found that stirring for a few minutes here and there does not really do the job.

Test your wine-put your thumb over the bottle (or a taster cork), shake it up, see if you get a pop, if so you have gas.

if so you have 2 options:
1) uncork all bottles, put in carboy, degass again or age.
2) leave in bottle, prior to drinking decant and swirl alot to release gas.

Just because your wine has gas in it does not make it bad wine. :rockin:

 

Basically it was in primary for about 12 days, until hydrometer reading was steady, then racked into secondary and topped up, then in secondary for about a month. I regularly degassed with a drill attached degasser. I also degassed several times over a 20 minute period a few hours before i bottled. Wine has been in bottle for about 6 weeks. It does taste and smell good. I will try the test with the bottle to see if gas is present. Thanks.

 

Sometimes when using a drill as a means to degass, if you drill to fast you create a vortex and can add oxygen and or gas to the mix.

 

Really isn't that much of a big deal, you simply didn't allow enough CO2 to come out of the wine. Unless you have the means to vacuum degass (allinone wine pump highly recommended) stirring is hit-or-miss.

I'd go with the decanting option on this batch and think about your next one!

 

I did the bottle test, it definitely has some CO2 still in it. I may just decant or use a wine vacuum on each bottle, one case at a time. Thanks for the help.

 

Half the weight of the sugar is converted to CO2 (so, for example, 10 lbs of fermentable sugar will result in 5 lbs of CO2). Unless you have a really good method of degassing including using an open fermenter during the primary fermentation stage that quantity of gas is not going to go anywhere very fast through the narrow fitting of your airlock.