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I have now decided to try my hand at some wine making as SHMBO decided she would also like to enjoy the fruits (haha) of my hobby.

In the instructions for the kit I received (White Riesling) I was told to leave the must on the gross lees for one week and secondary for two weeks before degassing/fining. The instructions also mentioned that the gravity should be around .996 after secondary. Well I'm about a little over a week into secondary and my gravity had already reached it's target, so my question now is - should I follow the same rules for beer, let the yeast "clean up" byproducts etc. Or is it okay to degass and begin the fining process?

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I've made several batches of wine from kits and have always had at least a 2 week secondary followed by at least 6 months in the bottle for white, 12 months for red.

I can't give you specific details of why this is necessary - just that time is a great healer.

You could rack the wine now, but it will taste better if you wait a week.

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  • I leave most wines for a year's bulk aging. The flavors improve, and the CO2 naturally dissipates. May 8, 2013 at 14:16
  • The downvoter - are you disagreeing with the advice? Do you think it doesn't need to wait a week longer? A comment is helpful.
    – mdma
    May 14, 2013 at 19:10

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