RJ Spagnols Treating high acid wine

[winemaker81]

Checked the wine pH and TA. Absolutely no change in either.

how does it taste?

 

[Monty Knapp]

how does it taste?

No change in the taste either.
Still sour.
I'll give it 6 months before I open a bottle.

 

[winemaker81]

No change in the taste either.

Odd. It appears the wine dropped enough crystals to make some difference.

 

[wood1954]

Perhaps the sourness is from the tannin? Dropping that much acid should have made a less acidic and less sour wine. I recently added a little too much tannin to a carboy and it really made it more sour, hopefully it will fall out eventually

 

[winemanden]

On the few occasions when I have had to use bicarb, I've found it easier to draw off a portion and drop the acid on that, even if I've had to do it a couple of times. Taste test after blending it back in. Less likely to overstep the mark that way.

 

[winemanden]

Perhaps the sourness is from the tannin? Dropping that much acid should have made a less acidic and less sour wine. I recently added a little too much tannin to a carboy and it really made it more sour, hopefully it will fall out eventually

I don't know if it works that way round, but higher acid does make tannin more prominent.

 

[Sailor323]

Perhaps the sourness is from the tannin? Dropping that much acid should have made a less acidic and less sour wine. I recently added a little too much tannin to a carboy and it really made it more sour, hopefully it will fall out eventually

Tannins bring bitterness and astringency to the wine, not sourness

 

[wood1954]

Tannins bring bitterness and astringency to the wine, not sourness

Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference

 

[Nebbiolo020]

You should not have high acidity in a kit as they are supposed to be balanced by the producer to make a drinkable wine, I have experience with correcting too little acid but I have never had too much as my wine region tends to produce fruit that’s low in acid like ph 4.0-4.5 range regularly. This years Syrah was 4.3 at harvest.

 

[wood1954]

I quit making kits because they were all too sour and expensive. That was before I used MLB and potassium bicarbonate. I use my vineyard and juice buckets now. I highly recommend juice buckets if you can get them inexpensivly

 

[wood1954]

Here's a late follow up to my effort to reduce the TA of an RJS Amarone.
Left the wine in a refrigerator set to it's maximum coldness setting - about 25⁰F - for a couple of months.
It started forming crystals immediately. After a couple months, there didn't seem to be any further crystal formation.
Checked the wine pH and TA. Absolutely no change in either.
So, I just bottled it.

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It looks like you’re getting rid of tartaric acid and it’s still sour. That makes me think perhaps you’re tasting malic acid. Have you tried Malolactic fermentation? Or using a yeast like 71b or Avante by renaissance yeast, they both metabolize malic acid. The MLB has really helped my 2022 Marquette wine. A kit may have been treated with so2 so I would inoculate with VP 41 mlb after fermentation, and of course if you want to do MLF you won’t add any so2 till MLF is done.

 

[cmason1957]

Kits are not candidates for Malolactic Fermentation. They are balanced to end up at the "proper" acid level per the kit manufacturer. In addition, man-made malic acid is added to get to that level. It will not be converted by the acid. The Godfather of kits Tim Vandergrift says it will lead to a flabby unappealing wine. The few folks I have read that have tried have either given up in frustration or agreed with Tim.

 

[wood1954]

I did not know they added malic acid. I’ve always been under the impression that winemakers wanted to get rid of malic acid in order to make the wine more biologically stable as well as more pleasant to drink. Generally Ive found the more I try to manipulate a wine the worse it gets