Tags

I've become really fond of the tags we've been creating the last few years for both the wines and liqueurs  we've been making.  I think I'll start posting them to a sidebar.

TA, spinning my wheels

And then I decided to test a bottle of Ca’ del Solo Muscat for acid - 8+, compared to our wine's 7.  Also further reading (Iverson, Crowe, Warrick) says some of them think the range should be a little hoogher or lower than Accuvin's guidelines, but almost everyone talks about must, not finished wine - fermentation slightly drops TA. 

Anyway, the commercial wine has higher TA by about 1 g/L.  Crowe has a straightforward formula for acid adjustment:

1 L = 0.2642 gal.
So, 1 g/L = 
3.8g tartaric acid/G
or
18g/5 gal carbouy.

of course, Crowe desn't think you should change the acidity of finihed wine, because it might affect the long-term stability of the wine.  Iverson thinks it's fine any time during bulk aging.  Warrick - I can't figure out what he thinks on the topic.

So.
Not likely to make an adjustment now (I think), but added to the list of procedures for next year - Test TA in the must.

2009 Muscat 2nd racking

Second racking this morning, + KSO2. 

Tasting - much relieved, color great, taste right where you'd hope, adjusting for it being 10 AM and still a little dog-mouthed.  At the end of the first racking we topped off with a 750 of Muscat that we set aside as overflow at pressing, but didn't taste that 750 before using it: the tail end of it was very tart, very fizzy, and I worried I'd squirreled the carboy.  Plus intermediate tastings weren't comforting.  But this morning's wine was all happy.  Lost less than a liter in the racking, and will cold-stabilize another of the 750 set-asides and use it to top up this afternoon - unless the partners would rather use part of a commercial bottle.  I'm happy either way.

So, excellent color, good acid (by measure and taste), taste where I was hoping it would be.  Not all that much nose - not nearly as much as the just fermented juice.  Clear enough so that we might skip bentonite?  Definitely imagining it all going in the summer party, chilled and saving lives.

2009 Muscat titratable acid: 7 g/L

Used the Accuvin titratable acid test this evening on the Muscat.  7 grams per liter as tartaric acid - which means that we are in the target range for whites - 7 to 9 g/L.