Friday, March 28, 2008

Roberts Road Pinot Analysis

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

Alcohol15.13% (v/v)
pH3.75
Titratable Acidity5.88g/L
Malic Acid1.33g/L
Glucose+Fructose3.94g/L
Volatile Acidity0.43g/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.

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