A couple of weeks ago I posted an entry for Sweet Red Wine – Part 1. That post covered the set-up to primary fermentation using store-bought grape juice, sugar, and bread yeast (gasp – again with the bread yeast).

The fermentation of the wine was done around the 18th of July. It had come down from an Original Specific Gravity (OG) of 1.114 to a Final Specific Gravity of 1.022 (FG) for a final Alcohol By Volume (ABV) of around 12%. That’s a bit higher than I expected, but with the FG at 1.022 it was still in the semi-sweet range.

Setting aside the brewing terminology and such – this turned out as an average wine alcohol level. It had a nice garnet color but was a bit hazy which I would expect for this early in the process. It was also very gassy. We transferred it to a secondary fermentor (conditioning) for a little more time to let those gasses filter out and more sediment to fall out of suspension. I did take a taste and I liked it aside from the tang from the fermentation gases.

Recall from my first post – the intent of this wine is to be drinkable quickly without long conditioning or the aging period. This isn’t intended to make a fine wine that needs a solid year to age well. The problem is – aging is somewhat important. Those gases produce off-flavors and it takes time to resolve that. You can carefully stir the wine to get it to release, but time is still important.

However, I’ve read this particular recipe goes a bit flat if it conditions too long. So on July 23rd, I transferred it again to a pitcher, degassed with a spoon, and transferred to bottles. The FG didn’t change – it was still sitting at 1.022 proving that it was indeed done fermenting. The taste had improved as did the clarity even in the short few days it spent in secondary fermentation.

I refrigerated a bottle (yep this one should be cold – it’s sweet) and had it with dinner the next night. I think it turned out great. The grape flavors are still very much present, there is just enough sweetness to meet the sweet pallet favored by Bridge. It went well with a good steak, tomato/cucumber salad, and grilled corn.

The three other bottles will keep aside for another couple of months to see how much more improvement that time can bring. I don’t want to let it go much more than that, But I do usually reserve one bottle of each batch for at least a year. We will see how that turns out.

Would I change anything? Most likely I would use a wine yeast and bump up the sugar a bit to compensate for the higher alcohol tolerance of the wine yeast. While the bread yeast worked without a problem, the more control and the esters produced by a wine yeast will be superior. And bread yeast is really hard to find right now.