[wookie]

I've got a batch of Steuben and a batch of Fredonia wine from the Lake Erie region (made from juice purchased from the Arrowhead Winery in North East, PA). Both have been bulk aging for approximately 2 years and were cold stabilized at approx. 38 deg F for 1 month. I made both with yeast nutrient and Montrachet yeast and now they both have a slight bitter taste that occurs in the very beginning, but quickly fades. The fault is helped by backsweetening a little bit, which I plan on doing due to the high acidity of the wine, but isn't completely masked without the wine being overly sweetened. Any suggestions on how to address this fault before bottling? I've read some posts that suggest gelatin or polyclar fining may help. Both wines cleared very well on their own. Will the fining solutions still help for a clear wine? Also, any advice on how to avoid this flaw next time? Thanks in advance for any advice that can be offered!

[RSG]

You could try a little egg whites.....just a teaspoon and a pinch of salt mixed with some of the wine and immediately stirred in for 5 gallons. Careful not to add to much as it will stripe body fast. It should help that sharpness.

It's pretty tough to answer your second question. Did you ferment on the skins and add the press run juice to the free run juice. Where there allot of stems in the wine. What was the acid to start with?

[Jack Keller]

I've got a batch of Steuben and a batch of Fredonia wine from the Lake Erie region (made from juice purchased from the Arrowhead Winery in North East, PA). Both have been bulk aging for approximately 2 years and were cold stabilized at approx. 38 deg F for 1 month. I made both with yeast nutrient and Montrachet yeast and now they both have a slight bitter taste that occurs in the very beginning, but quickly fades. The fault is helped by backsweetening a little bit, which I plan on doing due to the high acidity of the wine, but isn't completely masked without the wine being overly sweetened. Any suggestions on how to address this fault before bottling? I've read some posts that suggest gelatin or polyclar fining may help. Both wines cleared very well on their own. Will the fining solutions still help for a clear wine? Also, any advice on how to avoid this flaw next time? Thanks in advance for any advice that can be offered!

Wookie, first of all, "a slight bitter taste" may be accurate, but isn't very helpful. I can think of too many varieties of tastes that are "slight bitter", so you have to be more specific if you want help. Second, you sweeten a wine or you don't, but there is no such word as "backsweetening." Third, if you don't get a satisfactory answer here, you might want to stop in and see the folks at Presque Isle in North East, PA (since you mentioned the location). Discussing the problem with someone might yield better understanding than trying to nail it down in a static description.

[Bunghole]

Wookie, first of all, "a slight bitter taste" may be accurate, but isn't very helpful. I can think of too many varieties of tastes that are "slight bitter", so you have to be more specific if you want help. Second, you sweeten a wine or you don't, but there is no such word as "backsweetening." Third, if you don't get a satisfactory answer here, you might want to stop in and see the folks at Presque Isle in North East, PA (since you mentioned the location). Discussing the problem with someone might yield better understanding than trying to nail it down in a static description.

I agree with Jack.

Even after getting answers here I would visit Presque Isle and talk to them since it was their Juice.

The Vintner there might be more then willing to discuss the juice they sold you and help you with the bitter taste

John

[Green Zeus]

Was the Steuban wine made from the grape? Or was it juice? Steuban doesn't have much acid so I'm a little confused as to why the acid is so high. Did you add a lot of acid blend?

When you speak of a bitter taste, the first thing that comes to mind is the crushing of the seeds. If the grape was pressed by someone other than you, then maybe some seeds got crushed.

A few years ago, the winery down the road asked me if I wanted some juice from a crush he was getting in. I declined because I don't trust how other people do things. I like to work with the fruit on my own so I know what's been done. Maybe this is the case with the juice you got.

Bitter taste can be somewhat rectified by adding glycerin. Add about 1/2 oz. per gallon and see if that doesn't smooth it out. You could bench test a small amount to see if it works. You can buy glycerin in any health food store. We had a sort of bitter tasting blackraspberry one year that we added glycerin to and it was amazing how nice it turned out.

[Jack Keller]

Even after getting answers here I would visit Presque Isle and talk to them since it was their Juice.

John, I appreciate the endorsement, but he actually said he bought the juice from Arrowhead Winery in North East, PA. I mentioned Presque Isle because they, too, are in North East, PA and they have extremely knowledgable people working there.

[wookie]

The wine was made from juice bought at the winery, so I had no input on the crush or press. If it's a problem there it's out of my hands. I'll have to give some of the different families up in NE a few phone calls to see if I can track something down about these batches in particular.

Jack, I'll see if I can come up with a better term than bitter to describe the taste. I'll have to read up on wine lingo before I can give you anything more descriptive though. And as for "backsweetening", not sure where I picked that term up. Must of been something I read when I first got into the hobby. They referred to the process of stabilizing and sweetening a wine post-fermentation as "backsweetening". If it's more commonly called just "sweetening", then I'll stick to that.

No acid blend was added to either batch of these wines. When I took some acid measurements both were on the high side so I passed.

Thanks for the egg white and glycerin tips....I'll look into those!

[Jack Keller]

I'll have to give some of the different families up in NE a few phone calls to see if I can track something down about these batches in particular.

Sorry, but I thought that was your neck of the woods. You don't have your location listed on your profile (we are constantly asking people to do this so we all have an idea where they are and can frame our answers to the appropriate locale) so I assumed you were near the only place you mentioned.

Jack, I'll see if I can come up with a better term than bitter to describe the taste. I'll have to read up on wine lingo before I can give you anything more descriptive though. And as for "backsweetening", not sure where I picked that term up.

I'm not big on "wine lingo" per se but I do like to be precise in using winemaking terminology. "Bitter" is just too general. Also, a lot of people on this and other forums use "bitter" when they mean "sour." For example, lemon peel has a bitter taste but lemon juice is sour; people describe both as bitter all the time.

As for "backsweetening," it is a word I first encountered on this forum (and this forum is not all that old) and every newbie seems to have embraced it for reasons I can't fathom. Our language is so screwed up that few people know how to communicate precisely anymore, so when I see words like "backsweeten" appear and blossom I simply want to stomp them out. If everyone used a spell checker, they would vastly improve the communication on this forum. If you don't have one that works on forums, I recommend iSpell, a free utility that works when Windows' "Spell Checker" doesn't load (like here). Neither Windows' "Spell Checker" nor iSpell nor any dictionary I have consulted recognizes "backsweeten" as a word.

This is just a pet peeve of mine. Sorry it landed on you.

[Wade's Wines]

Jack,
I always enjoy your knowledge and input here. But just for fun I did a search for "Backsweeten". It came up 690 times on sites like:
northernbrewer.com homebrewtalk.com winemakingtalk.com winepress.us gotmead.com winesathome.co.uk moreflavor.com thebrewingnetwork.com tribes.tribe.net free90free.com derkeiler.com beeradvocate.com and 678 others. You may be fighting a loosing battle on this one! It may make the dictionary one of these years. Personally I don't mind either way. Was just curious.
Wade

[Howie]

I make Steuben every year. However, I obtain fresh grapes and ferment it like a red, with 10-14 days skin contact, resulting in a Rose. I usually finish it with about 1.5% residual sugar. One thing to keep in mind is that both Fredonia and Steuben have a lot of Labrusca in their genes. As a result, they will exhibit Labrusca or "Foxy" tasting characteristics found in grapes such as Concord, Catawba and Niagara, which generally taste better when sweetened a bit. Some folks think the flavor of dry labruscas is bitter. You may simply be tasting what the wine is supposed to taste like.

[Bunghole]

John, I appreciate the endorsement, but he actually said he bought the juice from Arrowhead Winery in North East, PA. I mentioned Presque Isle because they, too, are in North East, PA and they have extremely knowledgable people working there.

I was tired and reading a couple posts into it that night

John

[Jack Keller]

Jack,
I always enjoy your knowledge and input here. But just for fun I did a search for "Backsweeten". It came up 690 times on sites like:
northernbrewer.com homebrewtalk.com winemakingtalk.com winepress.us gotmead.com winesathome.co.uk moreflavor.com thebrewingnetwork.com tribes.tribe.net free90free.com derkeiler.com beeradvocate.com and 678 others.
You may be fighting a loosing battle on this one! It may make the dictionary one of these years. Personally I don't mind either way. Was just curious.

Wade, thank you for your kind words. I always enjoy your input too. I learn a lot from a great many of you.

Just for the fun of it, I did a search for "sweetening +wine" and it came up 238,000 times.

Don't get me wrong. I know I'm fighting a losing battle, but I'm fighting it just the same because I have a lot of pride in the assimilated language called American English -- even moreso when it is used to communicate with precision. "Backsweeten" is not nearly as offensive as "the fact of the matter is" (correctly, "the fact is"); why use the contraction of two words to say what one says with precision (or six words to say very poorly what three say precisely)? Both are a poor use of a rich language that is becoming poorer every day because people don't care. And when you don't care, you get exactly whatever the future delivers.

As I said, it's just a pet peeve of mine...because I care.

[Wade's Wines]

Beautiful reply, Jack, and for me from now on it's "sweetening" wine!
Wade

[JLC]

(or six words to say very poorly what three say precisely)?

When I read this I thought about those old kung foo movies with the english dub overs.