Acetic Wine

I don't know if it's available in his area, but VA can be removed from wine by crossflow filtration. Essentially, it's the same as reverse osmosis. Here in California there's a company (maybe more than one) that has trucks outfitted with this type of filtration equipment. I have no idea what it costs, but for only 500 gallons it may not be worth it.

What about just going with the flow and making that batch into wine vinegar? He'd certainly want to keep it well away from his good wines if he opts for that.

Tom S

I make vinegar out of red hybrids and can tell you it's really good vinegar. That said, 500 gallons to quarantine and treat differently might be a pain.

It doesn't sound like it's worth a lot of effort as wine given the other issues.

I do make it away from everything else as Tom mentions and the conversion crawls in winter, it needs to be warm to finish.

I assume he tried a small blending trial to see what it's like blended in with others. (I have read of blending for slight acetic issues but would not have the nerve to try it.)

Joe

Joe

Hey,

The other thing which has worked for me (I tried it for the first time this year on some Riesling which got sour rot) to get rid of acetic VA, and which I'm equally sure is available in the midwest, is fining with heavy cream.

I did it on the juice, since I knew the grapes were rotten, and it completely removed the smell. I wasn't inlcined to screw around with the lot of rotten Riesling, so I avoided bench trials and just used the legal limit for milk fining, which is 0.2%.

It might be worth a shot.

Dave

**************************************************************************** Dave Breeden snipped-for-privacy@lightlink.com

The only trouble with that is he's dealing with wine - not juice. The fat in the cream will extract alcohol from the wine as well as acetic acid - perhaps even in preference. Still, I suppose it's worth a try - at least as a bench trial.

Tom S

So what do you think was the cause of all this. What is "sour rot"?

B.

It's a condition where acetobacter starts making vinegar directly from the juice while the fruit is on the vine. The fruit has to be in pretty bad physical condition for that to occur because it won't happen unless the skin of the fruit is breached.

Tom S

In our case, sour rot was caused by a wonderful dry, hot summer, followed by 8 straight days of rain just at ripeness.

Folks in Long Island lost their entire crops. We were lucky to just

3 3 or 4 tons to rot, and to have to do extensive sorting on the rest.

Dave

**************************************************************************** Dave Breeden snipped-for-privacy@lightlink.com

Kewl trick with heavy cream.... I don't suppose you recovered the soured cream (now buttermilk) and made pancakes or bread with it?

Gene

Indeed, this might be an additional product from the winery. In the spirit of turning lemons into lemonade, perhaps bad wine might make good vinegar, and more happy customers.

AP