Brewing Question - Blackberry Wine

[bd]

I've been looking around for a good blackberry wine recipe to try in a couple months.  I've got an excellent top-secret berry picking spot and I'm just waiting for the season to get here.

Anyway, in looking at the recipes, I noticed that many of them say that when you get to the secondary fermentation stage, you need to wrap the carboy in brown paper or keep it in the dark.  Why is that?  What is it about blackberry wine that requires it to ferment in the dark?

bd

[Looper Flies]

It's not so much the black berries, but the yeast that needs to be protected from.sunlight. I keep my carbon in a dark closet.

[bd]

Good to know.  I'd never seen the instruction about wrapping the carboy in brown paper until I read the blackberry wine recipe.  Some of the websites show pictures of carboys fermenting in lit areas, but I guess maybe that's as much for the photograph as anything.

I've got a couple gallons of mead in secondary fermentation already, and they're on my tying desk in broad daylight.  I hope I haven't done them in.

I've got a larger batch in the primary fermentation bucket now - I guess when I rack into the carboy (probably Sunday) I will consider moving it to a closet. 

I don't have a lot of closet space!  My wife is going to be thrilled that our closet floors are going to be filled with carboys instead of her shoes!

bd