Bottles

  • If your wine is stored in a dark area it doesn’t matter, but if there is light about, choose or save tinted or coloured bottles for storage. This will protect the nice colour of your wine from fading.
  • If you have a lot of different wines, it might be wise to store all one type in bottles of the same colour. If the labels fall off you won’t be guessing.
  • When saving bottles, look for bottles that have a “dimple” in the bottom. This is where any remaining sediment will settle and is less likely to be disturbed when you pour the wine.
  • Contaminated bottles are a huge cause of spoiled homemade wine. You can’t be too careful about getting them clean. Keep them submersed in clean water until the moment you are ready to bottle.

Recording your brewing(s)

Keep a record of all the ingredients in every recipe you use. It will be important for making adjustments to the recipe or if you want to reproduce good ones in the future. This also helps with avoiding the recipes you don’t ever want to use again.

Record the times of starting, length of fermenting and storage, and how you liked or disliked the resulting wine.
Note the recipe you used and the date when you bottle your wine. Attach some kind of label to each bottle.