Snafflebit 2024 winemaking thread

[Rotundifolia]

It depends. If your only reading was just after the grapes were crushed, then it can change. Not all the grapes are typically broken up yet. When I went to a wine making forum, the professional winemakers stated that the chemistry can change a lot over the first few days as the enzymes breakdown the must. This is one of the benefits of cold soaking. You can measure PH and T/A at the end of cold soak and see if you need to adjust your must a little bit more.

 

[Snafflebit]

Thanks for sharing.
I didn't think acid could increase in a wine, only decrease. My assumption is a grape has a fixed amount of acid when picked and it cannot go up during fermentation or aging. Am I correct?

The TA (total acid), which in the case of grape wine is mostly tartaric acid, probably did drop a little. If tartrates drop out, then total acid will decrease. My tongue is telling me there is a lot of acid in this wine, especially considering the pH is 3.80

Regarding the increase in pH, there are so many variables affecting pH it is hard to point to one cause.

 

[Snafflebit]

In the interest of wine science, we opened another bottle of my 2022 BDX . I put it in a decanter and tasted it over 3 hours to note the change. I found that the biggest change to flavor and nose happened after 1 hour and the wine continued to improve after 3 hours. Fruity notes decreased and tannins became more prominent. Still, it was not quite as good as the wine that sat 3 days in an uncorked bottle, but it was good enough.

The day before, we uncorked a 1999 Bonny Doon "Le Cigare Volant" and gave it the decanter treatment. It took about an hour for some barnyard notes to dissipate and a slight metallic taste to also dissipate. Then, I noticed that the tannins also began to become more expressive than at first. So, it is not my imagination that aeration can make soft tannins come forward.