I have a question for the experts on here. I have been a beer brewer for a long time, but for my birthday my wife and her parents got me into the wine arena. In May I started my first two wine kits. One was a Selection International: Italian Barbaresco, and the other was a Selection Original: Johanasburg Reisling. Fermentation, degassing, clearing went great. Both have been in a glass secondary since the end of May. Both cleared beautifully (the Reisling is crystal).
Saturday night we got around to bottling both (thanks to my beatiful wife for helping to fill 60 bottles while I manned the corker). Both tasted ok, but not stellar, and not like a real Reisling or Barbaresco. We chalked it up to both being "young" and underdeveloped. Now that they are in the bottles, how long until they start to come into their own and develope/mature? We were hoping to give some as X-mas gifts this year, but we decided they are too young and don't want people to mis-judge our "yet-to-be-tested" wine making skills (especially since our beers have been a raging success). Is another six months good until we start to drink them? Another year? In any case, realizing now that wines take significantly longer than beers to mature, we picked up two more kits to get going: Selection Original-Barolo, and Selection International Limeted Edition- German Gerwutzaminer.
Also, do wines age differently in bulk than in the bottle? Is doing a bulk aging like we did better before bottle aging? Also, I bottled with #9corks. I planned to leave them upright for 3 days, then store on their sides. Is this correct?
Sorry for this little novel here, but I am still learning the wine-making world.
-Todd
Saturday night we got around to bottling both (thanks to my beatiful wife for helping to fill 60 bottles while I manned the corker). Both tasted ok, but not stellar, and not like a real Reisling or Barbaresco. We chalked it up to both being "young" and underdeveloped. Now that they are in the bottles, how long until they start to come into their own and develope/mature? We were hoping to give some as X-mas gifts this year, but we decided they are too young and don't want people to mis-judge our "yet-to-be-tested" wine making skills (especially since our beers have been a raging success). Is another six months good until we start to drink them? Another year? In any case, realizing now that wines take significantly longer than beers to mature, we picked up two more kits to get going: Selection Original-Barolo, and Selection International Limeted Edition- German Gerwutzaminer.
Also, do wines age differently in bulk than in the bottle? Is doing a bulk aging like we did better before bottle aging? Also, I bottled with #9corks. I planned to leave them upright for 3 days, then store on their sides. Is this correct?
Sorry for this little novel here, but I am still learning the wine-making world.
-Todd