Best place to buy wine making suppliesWell, Danny, I'm kinda new also, but purchase a lot of stuff online. Here was my approach. Google has a FROOGLE option to search retail stores - I found 3 good places searching for...
It sounds to me like this wine doesn't have sufficient fruit to stand up to a new barrel. I recommend that you save that new barrel for a wine that is more worthy of it. Furthermore, when that occasion arises, you should get the wine into that barrel within a day or so of pressing, after settling out most of the heavy lees.
Best Temp for secondary 176Thanks Ray and Darlene for your responses. I have read a lot of the older group postings and have read a lot of your responses to others and am very...
Back to the present case: If you find the tannins in this wine to be objectionably high after a full year's tank aging, I'd recommend that you age the wine for another year or more in a used barrel - say 2 or 3 years old. Even after that, the wine might require fining to remove some of the harsh tannins and expose the fruit.
Remember, even though barrel aging will tend to soften the wine by slow exposure to oxygen, the wine will still pick up tannin from the barrel itself. I recommend against aging this wine in a new barrel because (1) oak is not a subsbreastute for fruit, and (2) an older barrel will soften the wine without adding too much tannin.
As usual, you have to keep an eye on the wine to monitor its progress. That means weekly barrel tastings and toppings, plus sulfite adjustments as necessary.
Tom S
