Eventually, everything that can happen, does happen.
The Bear learned this evening that it’s important to be sure the fermentation process is completely stopped before bottling a new batch of wine.
Treesh and I make our own wine. This summer we made a wonderful batch of cherry wine, from sour cherries we picked from the tree in our backyard. (We picked the cherries a year ago, steamed and canned the juice, and put it away in the pantry.) Because these were sour cherries, we added lots of sugar in the first fermentation, and added more sugar in a second fermentation after racking into a carboy.
That was all earlier this summer. A couple months later, as September rolled around, it looked as though the fermentation was done. So we carefully siphoned it off into another bucket and bottled 28 small bottles of wonderfully sweet and fruity cherry wine. I set eight bottles aside in the wine cellar to date and store for later. The rest were on their sides in a box on our wine-making table in the basement.
So this evening I go to the wine cellar and discover that all eight bottles have blown their corks, shooting fizzy wine across the room. It was a mess, but it smelled wonderful! Must have happened just within the last few days. Treesh is certain at least one blew this morning, because all the cats were interested in noises coming from the basement.
Three other bottles on the wine-making table had also blown, but the rest still had their corks and caps on (though some were swelling and about to go).
We immediately uncorked the remaining bottles and returned them to a carboy, where they will complete their fermentation. We enjoyed the contents of one bottle of course, which was delightfully fizzy – like champagne!
We’ve had wine blow up on us before, but never after bottling. Chalk up another catastrophe to experience!
