MLF question 60

I certainly don't question the results you have obtained, but although you've been able to obtain a 0.08% TA decrease with cold stabilzation, I still feel that's a lot of work (for me, where I make wine in my basement with some steep stairs) for a fairly modest decrease. A number of fairly respected sources agree with me as well:

Jackish's "Modern Winemaking": "Chilling requires no chemicals but reduces acidity only in wines with appreciable tartaric acid and potbuttium. The reduction is generally small (often no more than 0.05%), requires controlled low temperatures, takes some time, and is difficult to monitor."

Jon Iversons's "Home Winemaking": "Super cilling a finished wine down to 20-30F for an extended period of time will cause some of the potbuttium bitartrate to precipitate. But unless the grapes had an abnormal level of tartrate salts to begin with, it will reduce overall acidity only slightly, perphaps 0.05%."

You can often get up to a 0.20% TA reduction with the MLF, so for me if that won't get me into the range I'm looking for, I break out the potbuttium bicarbonate (and prior to the MLF, since the MLF itself is inhibitied by high acid levels). So, I stand with my original statement, that cold stabilization is a relatively inefficient method of acid reduction (as a matter of fact I can't think of another widely used acid reduction method that is less efficient), and (of course depending on your winemaking location) can be a lot of effort.

Also, if you're going to seed your wine with cream of tartar during the cold stabilization to speed up the tartrate crystal formation, you run the danger of increased oxidation, since the cream of tartar needs to be well mixed into the wine, and the wine is more susceptible to oxidation when cold.

Thanks for the encouragement to try out a chromotography kit! Maybe I'll give it a go next year.

Jon Check out my winemaking homepage