Hi all. Looking for general guidance/advice here. I joined a friend’s family for wine making this year. We picked grapes, ordered as many as we needed to supplement the haul, grinded them after a few days, pressed them after another 4-5 days, and put about 14 gallons in a Demijon in my dark temp controlled basement 35 days ago. It’s not fizzing anymore. We didn’t add anything to the wine, it’s just grapes. Red and white, probably 85% red. After that much time, should it be drinking time? Bottle it? Drink it within how many days? Any advice? I’d like to give some as gifts so I don’t wanna screw it up.
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Mekpdue
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Now I haven't crafted wine from scratch with natural fermentation, but you will need to get a hydrometer to measure the sugar content.you'll want a reading of <.998 to ensure its fully fermented. Get it off the crud at the bottom (gross lees) by syphoning it into a clean sanitized demijohn. Without adding any stabilizers or aging, (i hesitate to recommend this) yes you can drink it. But I doubt it will be the best it can get. I recommend some serious googling and research.
Yes at about 30 days it should be ready to rack, at this point it will taste horrible, this is good, get all the wine transferred off lees then wait 4 months, rack again adding s02 and sorbate, 4 months later taste it to help decide amount of sugar to back sweeten.
