There might be a bit of a misconception here.

I do not only refer to making wine with kits and I make "country wines" ( so
called) regularly, though no longer on the scale that I used to do -- due
to lack of storage space in my small flat ( apartment to you in US). My
well ventilated bedroom is also my fermenting room and bulk store ( after
all I only sleep in my bedroom!) and I can additionally store about 200
bottles on racks in my larder. My main country wines these days are
blackberry ( with a tad of elderberry), apricot ( a favourite of mine) and
rhubarb -- still a tremendously useful wine to have a couple of 1 gallon
jars of in reserve and strawberry. I make strawberry every year but others
now every other year. My fortified elderberry is made every 3 years or so
these days (but goes through a very different aging process). The trouble is
that country wines do generally need a couple of years in bulk storage ( not
strawberry).

In my original post I referred specifically to bulk storage. By this I meant
the time after which my wine sits in it 24 litre glass carboys and is NOT
disturbed at all -- not even moved from its position until the day I come to
bottle it.
Before this time all necessary interference with the wine has been completed
and all lees have settled out.
There will be, inevitably, a very minor dusting in the carboy after bulk
aging but this will not affect the wine in anyway.
If, for any reason, I have to check the wine under bulk store, during this
resting time by taste or other test I might a readjust the SO2 --- but very
rarely. It would be very very unusual for me to have to rerack the maturing
wine during this resting/maturing period.

I am not an expert in winemaking by any means except that most of my methods
are as a result of long experience. One of the prime things I learned (
learnt?), many years ago, is that there tends to be too much "hands on"
interference with wines during all of the wine making process. Too many
hydrometer readings taken, too many peeks under the lid to see what is
happening, --- too much being "busy" with the wine. You have only to peruse
the columns here to see what I mean! Wine benefits by being left to get on
by itself. It is robust and likes to make itself. Wine likes to trundle
along in its own way without being rushed -- as, I suppose, do I!!
am sure that I do several things "wrong" by modern standards and long
experience is by no means necessarily "right" -- but I have only ever once
thrown away any of my wine -- last year as a matter of fact. I came to
bottle my last 1 gallon ( imp) of my fortified elderberry (vintage 1998 ).
which had been sitting gently in a remote corner, sealed off and undisturbed
for several years.
It turned out to be neither fortified, nor elderberry, nor indeed wine any
more. I don't know how the labelling mistake was made but when I cleaned off
the dust from the jar ( I always write on the carboy as well in felt pen) I
found it to be a gallon of a kit wine ( out of 5 which I had made for a
friend) Anyway it wasn't wine any more or of any other use and was poured on
my flowerbeds!

Apologies for the long ramble! ( or should that be "bramble")

--
Trevor A Panther
In South Yorkshire, England
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"pinky" > wrote in message
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> Why are you adding sorbate after bulk aging?
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