Demijhon topping

[ygerchman]

Hi,
I’ve got a question-
If I don’t have any reserved wine for topping the demijhon - is that better to topping with last harvest wine which was already in bottles than keeping it not full?
Thx again...
Yoav.

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi Ygerchman and welcome.
It is always better to have any wine that is no longer actively fermenting with as little exposure to O2 as possible. One way to do that is to have a smaller secondaries or to begin with a larger volume of must than you need to fill the secondary (my primary, for example, is a food grade bucket) , and a third option is to top up with another bottle of wine. The option of leaving head room means that you are inviting oxidation and oxidized fruit wines can taste terrible. You are also inviting acteo bacter to use the oxygen to convert your wine into vinegar.