Roberts Road Pinot Analysis

Results of the analysis of the post-pressing Pinot sample:

Alcohol	15.13	% (v/v)
pH	3.75
Titratable Acidity	5.88	g/L
Malic Acid	1.33	g/L
Glucose+Fructose	3.94	g/L
Volatile Acidity	0.43	g/L

This confirms that I did not add enough water before the start of fermentation. The alcohol is too high – some people may like wines over 15% but I find them unbalanced and fatiguing to drink – but more alarming is that the wine is not bone-dry.

My operational threshold for "dry" is 1.00 g/L (0.1% w/v, or as Vinquiry reports, 100 mg/100 mL). Some experts are OK with twice that value. But from the standpoint of assuring the most stable, most spoilage-resistant wine the only acceptable value is really "none detected". In practice, I am happy and relaxed if the residual glucose + fructose is less than 0.20 mg/L (20 mg/100 mL).

Clearly this wine is not there yet. Some guys would pitch for malolactic anyway. Not me. I want to wait for the wine to get below that 1.00 g/L threshold to make sure the bacteria produce a minimal amount of volatile acidity.