Carbonating wine

MattM1

My wife has asked me if i can make her some Fizz. OK i appreciate that this is perhaps thinking outside the box. Rather than bottling the wine, transferring it to a barrel and carbonating ? Thoughts ?

HBO_Staff

You can make sparkling wine in bottles (although they must be able to withstand pressure which standard wine bottles can't), there are recipes and info on it, books etc, but it can be done in the same way as Elderflower Champagne - bottle in strong bottles before it has fully finished fermenting, so the last bit of fermentation carbonates the brew. If done too early though there will be too much pressure in the bottles. 

You could consider keeping it in a barrel, but as you say the pressure must be maintained inside the vessel. If it draws air in through the tap then this will reduce the life of the wine, similar to once you've opened a bottle of wine it then needs drinking reasonably soon. If you were to experiment and try this, the wine could be transferred whilst it still is producing some of it's own CO2 and may need CO2 injecting in to keep the pressure up