High Ph after MLF

[stickman]

For the numbers people, here is a sample of some Paso wines and their stats, note that some of these wines have significant residual sugar probably to balance acidity, also probably sterile filtered.

A cab with 7.3 g/l residual sugar? I guess not all that surprising, but wow.

Many of these are also award winning wines.

Vintage 2016
Varietal Petite Sirah
Appellation Paso Robles
Harvest Date October 2016
Acid 6.30 g/L
pH 3.55
Bottling Date March 2019
Residual Sugar 3.00 g/L
Alcohol % 14.7

Vintage 2012
Varietal Cabernet Sauvignon
Appellation Paso Robles
pH 3.7
Bottling Date October 2014
Residual Sugar 7.30 g/L
Alcohol % 14.1

Vintage 2017
Varietal Malbec
Appellation Paso Robles
pH 3.8
Acid 5.8 g/l
Bottling Date April 2019
Residual Sugar 1.9 g/L
Alcohol % 14.7

Vintage 2016
Varietal Syrah/Viognier
Appellation Paso Robles
pH 3.77
Acid 5.9 g/l
Bottling Date April 2019
Residual Sugar 5.0 g/L
Alcohol % 13.6

Vintage 2016
Varietal Cabernet Sauvignon
Appellation Paso Robles
Harvest Date September 2016
Acid 6.60 g/L
pH 3.55
Bottling Date September 2018
Residual Sugar 5.00 g/L
Alcohol % 14.9
Wine Enthusiast 93, DOUBLE GOLD - San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition • GOLD - San Francisco International Wine Competition

Vintage 2015
Varietal Merlot
Appellation Paso Robles
Harvest Date September 2015
Acid 6.70 g/L
pH 3.49
Bottling Date March 2018
Residual Sugar 3.00 g/L
Alcohol % 14.5
Gold – Denver International Wine Competition Awards

Vintage 2015
Varietal Cabernet Sauvignon
Appellation Paso Robles
Harvest Date October 2015
Acid 6.20 g/L
pH 3.59
Bottling Date March 2018
Residual Sugar 2.70 g/L
Alcohol % 13.5

Release 2016
Varietal Cabernet Sauvignon
Appellation Paso Robles
Harvest Date October 2012
Acid 6.6g/L
pH 3.73
Bottling Date June 2015
Residual Sugar 6.4g/L
Alcohol % 14.6
PLATINUM + 94 Points – Somm Challenge: Int.
Denver International Wine Competition • DOUBLE GOLD - Indy International Wine Competition • GOLD + 91 Points - Central Coast Wine Competition • GOLD + 90 Points - San Francisco International Wine Competition • 92 Points - Vinous

Vintage 2012
Varietal Petit Verdot
Appellation Paso Robles
Harvest Date November 2012
Acid 6.3g/L
pH 3.69
Bottling Date July 2016
Residual Sugar 2.6g/L
Alcohol % 14.3

Vintage 2013
Varietal Merlot
Appellation Paso Robles
Harvest Date October 2013
Acid 6.3g/L
pH 3.41
Bottling Date December 2015
Residual Sugar 6.9g/L
Alcohol % 14.5
International Wine Competition • GOLD + 91pts San Diego International Wine and Spirits Challenge

 

[mainshipfred]

From what I remember 4 g/L and below is usually considered dry. The acid levels don't seem terribly high so my guess might be to offset the higher alcohol content. I would imagine it depends on who they are marketing. I think the general public prefer a sweeter or off dry wine.

 

[CDrew]

From what I remember 4 g/L and below is usually considered dry. The acid levels don't seem terribly high so my guess might be to offset the higher alcohol content. I would imagine it depends on who they are marketing. I think the general public prefer a sweeter or off dry wine.

I just looked this up because of an analysis I had done, and Pambianchi says dry is under 2g/L. I have heard that younger wine drinkers prefer sweeter wines and many wine makers are giving the people what they want. Some of those numbers quoted in post #41 look suspiciously high.

 

[montanarick]

“SO2 requirements
If the winemaker decides not to follow the charts above, he or she might just as well not add any SO2 at all, as it will not make much difference”

No sugarcoating it! Lol. Interesting to see the difference of opinion from as recently as 2012 in Stickmans post compared to now regarding high ph wines in the Purdue study.
I never realized that about the molecular levels/abv correlation either Fred.

I’m doin 95mph on the freeway with the top down and music blasting. Hope I don’t regret it! [emoji51]



Nope. Not as far as I could ever tell. I keep the cab in the barrel a little higher too. I’ll be blending all back together as well as adding maybe 10% of another wine (which has a 3.2 ph) before bottling soon. Im optimistic. After blending I should have about 10 cases of the wine so I sure hope it lasts more than 5 yrs!
Time will tell (abv is about 14% iirc)
So just like you said, first gotta decide if it stays or if can benefit from an adjustment. I just personally hate adjusting later. The couple times I did everything seemed fine at the time, but whether it was my taste buds that changed or the adjustments were accentuated with age, I ended up regretting it.

View attachment 57888

would you mind sharing where these charts came from? thanks

 

[Ajmassa]

would you mind sharing where these charts came from? thanks

Was included in the article Posted earlier in this thread. The Purdue study of high ph/so2. Post #18

 

[Mario Dinis]

Here are 2 different charts that measure about the same.View attachment 57908

Thank you for the file. I will keep it for future reference.

 

[montanarick]

Was included in the article Posted earlier in this thread. The Purdue study of high ph/so2. Post #18

Okay, I've got it thanks. Charts appear to have been generated by some software application where you could input molecular SO2 and alcohol content to come up with free SO2 at various pH's. I though maybe you had a source for the software.

 

[stickman]

Deleted, wrong post.

 

[Obbnw]

This summer I'm taking a continuing ed course in grape growing wine making. I told my wife most of the people in the course would be better off just following this forum.

Case in point - the instructor went on a little rant about "flabby high ph wines" and defined high as over 3.6. Basically he said it was foolish to not lower the ph. My grapes are almost always at 3.6 or higher so I spent some time reading/studying about high ph wines. This thread was about the best document I found. Thanks WMT!

Now I need a bottle of "flabby" wine and a bottle of "non flabby" wine to understand what flabby means and if my wine is flabby. ; )

I did pick some grapes earlier one year so the ph was lower. The wines were drinkable but color was lacking, and flavor was thin. The wine was disappointing.

I'll have to start paying more attention to sulfur. I've been a little loose since I haven't really aged any of my wine. This year, if all goes well, I'm trending to a 900 lb harvest which is way more than I can drink in a year so some will have to be stable for ageing.

 

[Greg Corey]

This summer I'm taking a continuing ed course in grape growing wine making. I told my wife most of the people in the course would be better off just following this forum.

Case in point - the instructor went on a little rant about "flabby high ph wines" and defined high as over 3.6. Basically he said it was foolish to not lower the ph. My grapes are almost always at 3.6 or higher so I spent some time reading/studying about high ph wines. This thread was about the best document I found. Thanks WMT!

Now I need a bottle of "flabby" wine and a bottle of "non flabby" wine to understand what flabby means and if my wine is flabby. ; )

I did pick some grapes earlier one year so the ph was lower. The wines were drinkable but color was lacking, and flavor was thin. The wine was disappointing.

I'll have to start paying more attention to sulfur. I've been a little loose since I haven't really aged any of my wine. This year, if all goes well, I'm trending to a 900 lb harvest which is way more than I can drink in a year so some will have to be stable for ageing.

I think I know the class you are speaking of and I was feeling a bit disappointed that I couldn’t attend - but now I’m not so sad. 900lbs is a great yield. Is it enough of a yield to try different styles for the same variety? Maybe put some different harvest times/ph to the test? One thing I would love to do is have enough grapes and equipment to really run heavy experiments on this stuff.

 

[Obbnw]

I think I know the class you are speaking of and I was feeling a bit disappointed that I couldn’t attend - but now I’m not so sad. 900lbs is a great yield. Is it enough of a yield to try different styles for the same variety? Maybe put some different harvest times/ph to the test? One thing I would love to do is have enough grapes and equipment to really run heavy experiments on this stuff.

So far the class is disappointing but not so bad that I'm skipping classes. There is some useful info and just hearing some of his 30 years of experience is reassuring.

I usually harvest 50 to 60 lbs at a time and ferment in 7 gallon buckets so I have lots of opportunities to play.

I need to get better at documentation. Plus my sense of taste isn't quite good enough to distinguish or identify the specific changes. Ie I had 1 picking a few years back of 150 lbs, split it up, did different yeasts in each bucket, could tell they were different but not why or if one was better.

So far I only have 1 process I want to repeat exactly.

 

[winemaker81]

I think I know the class you are speaking of and I was feeling a bit disappointed that I couldn’t attend - but now I’m not so sad. 900lbs is a great yield. Is it enough of a yield to try different styles for the same variety? Maybe put some different harvest times/ph to the test? One thing I would love to do is have enough grapes and equipment to really run heavy experiments on this stuff.

you need 90-100 lbs / 41-45 kg of grapes to make 5 US gallons / 19 liters, so 900 lbs / 408 kg is plenty to experiment with.