Stablizing Cherry Wine

[Doug Walmsley]

I live in central Iowa and inherited a couple of five gallon carboys from my grandfather years ago. Well, actually my wife wanted them as they looked like neat bottles to put flower arrangements in. I never really gave them much thought.

A few years ago, family members bought an orchard as a result of having to drive through it to get to their home. This got us into canning, freezing and various other things as we had access to high quality fruit. A few months ago, I started thinking about winemaking. As cherries are an early fruit, we picked a couple of five gallon pails of them over the forth of July weekend. They were pitted and frozen until such time as I was ready to make my wine. I ordered the various ingredients and additional equipment and started a five gallon batch of cherry wine a couple of weeks ago. It would have been helpful if I'd run accross this site a while back.

The wine has been transferred to the secondary with airlock and should be ready to rack in another month. The SG is currently around .990 which should put it in the 12.5% to 13% alcohol range. I'll probably rack it a minimum of 4 times.

Where I would appreciate some advise is in stablizing the wine. I've read recommendations of using 2 1/2 tbs of Potassium Sorbate and five candom tablets per five gallons to kill the yeast prior to any post sweetening. On the other hand, I have read that Potassium Sorbate adds a noticable taste to the wine which can get stronger and more offensive as it ages.

Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated. As I am really in no hurry to bottle it, I'm also wondering whether any yeast would still be alive after approximately 5 or 6 months. In other words, would the candom tablets be sufficient?

I'm also considering oaking a small amount to see how I like it. I normally prefer dry reds and am wondering whether a french oak medium toast would give it a little more complexity or simply mask the cherry flavor.

Last but not least, I bought a kit to test the acid content. Although my background has been somewhat based on R&D of a chemical nature, I found the results of the multiple tests I performed to be marginally conclusive at best. Basically, the acid content appeared a bit low to me. I didn't add any acid blend in the beginning. Have any of you started out added some?

Sorry about the length of the message. I didn't intend this to become a short story.

Thanks,

Doug

[Dianne]

Hi Doug:

I am basically at the same stage as you are - my first batch of cherry wine is at 45 days. I had a friend sample it and he said it was it was a bit 'thin' - not a strong berry flavour at all. He suggested putting some oak chips in the carboys for a couple of weeks to give it some complexity. I went to the local wine supply store and they suggested adding some dried currants to give it a better taste. At this point I think I will try the currants first. I am going to leave the currants in for about 3 weeks, rack off of them, and leave the wine in a carboy for another 3 months. If at that time I can detect a better berry flavour I will probably bottle and let age for another 6 months minimum. If the currants don't do the trick then I will probably try the oak chips.

A bit of a heads up regarding your question about killing yeast. I had two differents wines, both a year old - one in the carboy and the other bottled for a year - and decided to blend them together. I didn't think any yeast would still be active, but there must have been enough in the bottled wine (the sweeter of the two) and enough residual sugar as some of the newly bottled wine did explode. Oops!!

Let me know what you end up doing with your wine. I would like mine to have a better cherry flavour and am not sure if I should back sweeten it. I will make that decision after letting it rest with the currants.

Best of Luck!

Cheers Dianne

[Doug Walmsley]

Dianne, I appreciate the feedback. Did you use a tart cherry or was it a sweeter variety? Were you going to use black currants? One recipe I found recommended using cherry extract for a more robust cherry flavor. Although that seemed a bit unnatural, I guess it would work. I'm probably to the point where I need to make some decisions on mine also.

In the recipe you used, did you add an acid blend? I still haven't determined what the acid level in mine is, but feel it's probably on the low side.

Having the bottles explode after all that time and work would obviously be a bummer. Did you add any potassium sorbate or just didn't feel it wasn't needed?

Dianne, thanks again.

Doug