Kevin,
At all times except at the very beginning of fermentation
you need to think about what is protecting your wine from
oxidation. If the wine is in a carboy, fully fermented and
you open it up then you are introducing oxygen. If it's not
topped up and you have a 6" air space then you've introduced
that much more oxygen compared to a 1/2" air space.

You've put the wine into a bucket with an airlock but there's
probably a 4" or more air space across the total diameter
of the bucket. Since the wine is not producing CO2 in any
great quantity (or at all) nothing is displacing that oxygen.
Get it into a topped up carboy.

If it had gone into the bucket under an airlock while still
fermenting it would fairly quickly displace the oxygen with
CO2 from the fermentation. However the speed of the fermentation
would decide how much oxygen exposure the wine would get.
However I don't think of a bucket with a lid as being very
air tight, I could be wrong though.

Don

> Don: Thanks for the reply. It is in a pail but it is also under an
> airlock. I fermented first in a carboy as it was my first wine I
> wanted to see it fermenting. It fermented down to about .996 in 2
> weeks and I wanted to get it off the lees at this time. As the instr.
> said to rack it and not worry about topping up I thought I could put
> it in a bucket (7.5) gal w/o worrying, for a week then I'd go into my
> 5 gal carboy with SO2, no sorbate, for several months. Is this a plan
> or am I missing something? Thanks again.