Racking the Plum Wine

The first batch of plum wine for the season has been fermenting for well over a month now.  It has reached the point where there aren't any more bubbles rising to the surface, so it was ready for the next step.  Racking the wine is the process of siphoning off the wine from the "debris" of yeast and tiny fruit pieces that have settled to the bottom of the carboy.  This step helps to further clear the wine and prepare it for bottling.

This particular recipe calls for sugar to be added at this stage as well.  Fermentation has ended when the alcohol content of the wine is high enough to kill off the yeast.  Adding sugar at this point will not restart fermentation, but it will sweeten the wine a bit more.  The wine will still need to sit for at least another month to clear completely after this racking.

To begin I simply siphoned the wine into the primary fermenting bucket that was cleaned and sterilized in preparation for this step.  Once I siphoned off as much as possible, I added the remaining sugar called for in the recipe and stirred it in until it was fully dissolved.  Then I siphoned the wine back into the now clean and sterilized carboy where it will continue to clear until I am ready to bottle it.

I did have a tiny taste of this wine and I think it will make a fantastic bottle of wine after a little more aging.  It still carries the sharp yeasty flavor since it was freshly siphoned off of the dead yeast that created it.  That taste will go away with time so that is all that I need to give this beautiful batch of wine....time.  I hope to be bottling this batch in another month or so and I am still waiting for the late season batch to finish fermenting.  It won't be long until my shelves are full of wine bottles too!