Ageing port at home

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  mskeggs on 26/05/2014 - 11:02

  +2

  I take my hat off to your prodigious port consumption that this is a possibility!
  I'm not a wine maker, but I home brew a fair bit of beer and know some hobbyist winemakers.
  I think there are a couple of issues, that might derail you, however.
  Straight away is the cost of the wine and the brandy.
  The tax/excise on wine, including fortified wines, is set under special rules called the wine equalisation tax. Spirits are taxed at a substantially higher rate.
  Since you will be planning to turn, say 100L of 12% wine into 115l of 18% port, you will need to supply about 15L of brandy, on which excise has been paid. So at $20L, around $300.
  If you went with terrible cask red as the wine base, you would be pressed to get it cheaper than $3/l, so another $300 there.
  Add in the cost of a storage vessel and the hassle, and there doesn't look to be much possibility of a cost saving!
  But to answer some direct questions:
  - don't use a barrel, use a plastic drum with oak chips floating inside it.
  - the wine will be preserved fine, just keep it sealed and out of sunlight.
  - I suppose you could make it bad with the wrong cleaning stuff. A couple of teaspoons of bleach in a litre or two of water makes a strong disinfectant that you can rise your equipment with.
  - finally, I think it would be astonishing if you were able to make port that tasted better than the cheapest nastiest stuff at the bottle shop on your first go. Most wine maker's I know struggle to produce semi-drinkable wine after lots of practice. It is a lot harder to get pleasing results than brewing beer.

  • 

    Kevan2 on 26/05/2014 - 23:26

    Thanks, didn't think of enhancing wine, but why not.

    Was/were looking at enhancing port hence the oak barrel but chips could put a interesting taste sensation.

    Plastic drum barrel . A lot cheaper than a small oak barrel.

    But the real challenge is to wait the 10 months.

    Interesting fact, the choice of beer substitute during ww2 was, sadley, method and brown nugget . This was street people and those that couldn't manage.