Would you believe there are people who are so anxious to know when or how long a wine matures whereas the truth is they just want to have a good drink of it? Actually, it is surprising that the number of people will not simply believe it that wines improve with age. They set about making wines possessed of urgency which should not exist and an impatience that is hard to believe. People really believe that wine can be made, matured and drunk in six or seven weeks. Of course with luck, you might get fermentation done and your wines clear and bottled in that time, but truly they can't be drinkable even so young.

You know it very well that you will be itching to get your teeth into these wines and you cannot blame yourself for that because you are not alone; winemakers have these eager feeling to sample the latest batch to be bottled off. And for some reason, keeping the homemade wine at least a year before you manage to drink it is a waste of time, especially after when you had a taste of it when siphoning it into bottles. But, you have to remember this for your own sake. At bottling time, put two bottles in the attic or some other place where they cannot be reached easily or you can send it to your special someone to keep it if you like. Seriously, those two bottles of each lot made will soon amount up to a nice little stock.

Building up a stock collection means to be making numerous lots at the same time. In the middle of the process of one batch, you start another. This way, you will always have a couple gallons fermenting, several bottles for use as needed and a dozen slowly growing into a nice reserve. These saved wines will have become so magnificent in that time that your lesson will be learned.

It is also a good idea to keep some of the wine for five years at least. For at five years it is better than age our and at three years old it is better than age two. Do not worry, these maturing times have been proven by expert winemakers. Now, are you ready to keep your wines long enough to have a delightful taste?

In addition, wines should be stored at a temperature at which they remain constant throughout the year. Rapid changes of temperature are certainly best avoided, so if you can store your wines on a stone floor or in a cupboard which has a stone floor, so much the better; if you cannot do this, store your wines where you can and fret no more.