One of my first white wine kits was the New Zealand Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. I made it in Spring of 2012 and the bottles have gone largely untouched in the basement. Drinking one tonight and it seems very acidic.
I can feel it go down my throat and it has a slight golden yellow color to it. I can’t remember if it was this color when bottled but I’m wondering if it is oxidizing already?
Does anyone add additional metabisulphite to their whites for more stabilization? Or I wonder if it was just a PH issue?
I just measured the PH with a strip and it’s clearly 3.6 but I also stuck a strip into a cut lemon and it registered about 2.8 (which surprises me that it wasn’t off the lower end of the scale).
Anyway, not sure if this wine is supposed to be this acidic or not? Any thought?
Edit: the color is clearly #4 on this wine color chart
http://winefolly.com/tutorial/white-wines-by-color/
Speaking only for myself, I always use a little Kmeta at bottling. I got in this habit with my grape wines and sort of carry it over if I make a kit. As for oxydation, the first thing I usually look for is a sort of reddish/brown color to the wine. My guess would be that, if you didn’t use Kmeta at bottling, you could very easily have a bit of oxydation building up. Good luck. :cheers:
Is it possible to dump the wine back into a carboy (realizing that it will add oxygen back in), add the Kmeta to deoxidize it again, then rebottle?
I don’t believe that oxidation is a reversible process in finished wine. The kmeta works before oxidation because the sulfites bind to compounds in the wine, preventing oxidation before it occurs. Unfortunately once the wine is oxidized then it’s here to stay.
As mentioned above, you are not going to be able to reverse the aging process of the wine at this point.
As far as the color goes, it seems about par for the course. As white wine ages it gets darker in color. (As red wine ages it gets lighter in color. )
I would say that the ideal window for this wine was about 6-18 months. So I am not surprised that it would be showing some age after more than 2 years.
Some folks like old white wine. I am not one of those folks.
Your wine is just past its prime. Too bad. Assuming this was the Eclipse offering, it is a very solid wine kit.
