barrel-fermenting a Chardonnay

Hi, I have made many barrel ferment Chardonnay. First, you must know that if you barrel ferment and do a MLF you will loose most of the light fruitiness a Chardonnay can have. Barrel ferment Chardonnay with MLF will have more body, more mouthfeel, more buttery, nutty character that is more than welcome in good Chardonnay IMHO.

Here is few recommendations :

Ferment slowly at 10-14 Celcius with proper yeast strain CY3079 or D47 if you want to keep some fruits. The CY3079 if better for sur lees ageing however.

Don't add the ML Bacteria till the wine is fermenting. You should not do that when cold fermenting as the MLF could stuck and will be difficult to restart. Also, if you have a slow fermentation and you add your culture early as co-inoculation, the MLF will occur simultaneously with the alc. fermentation and as soon as they all convert the available malic acid the bacteria will search for something new to "eat" and will eat the sugar that remain in the must and thus convert some as acetic acidity. Better is to let the wine ferment till dry and add your ML culture in the barrel or rack and add it in carboy or any other container if you have enough oak. You should increase the temp to 18 Celcius and ideally use some Opti-Malo Nutrient or such to help kickup the MLF. Oh, stirring the lees in the barrel once per week is ok during the fermentation but there is no need once the MLF is started. MLF is an anaerobic fermentation.

During MLF there will be a production of diacetyl compound that are responsible of the buttery flavors you can found in some nice Chardonnay. The more malic acid in the juice and the more diacetyl compound you can have. As soon as the MLF is over ( confirm with a test kit ) you should rack and ideally filter the wine to remove as much yeast as possible to avoid them consuming the diacetyl ( most strain start as soon as they have no more sugar to eat ). So using filtering with a good dose of K-meta will stabilise the wine.

For the yeast, I think that More Wine have it in small quantity (

Hope this help, Séb

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:

Séb,

Thanks for the advice and source for CY3079.

RD

An initial temperature of 55-60 degrees F is fine. After a couple of days (right after the fermentation takes off) the temperature will be a little higher, and that's the time to inoculate for ML. The Brix will be ~20 or so. BTW, you should not have added any SO2 yet.

A local winery? Ask them. You don't need much. If you have to, buy a brick. Yeast isn't all that expensive. It keeps well in the 'fridge if you seal it up properly.

Good luck with your wine.

Tom S

I've heard this before, but have never experienced such a problem with California fruit. FWIW, the Wine Lab recommends concurrent alcohol & ML fermentation with the strains of ML culture they offer.

If you are working with fruit from a different region (e.g., Europe) concurrent fermentations _may_ not be advisable.

Tom S

Thanks, Tom. I've only worked with California fruit and also have not have problems with co-innoculation. However, I'm used to doing this a bit later at around 8-12 Brix.

If I understand you correctly, a barrel fermented chardonnay in this style will end up fermenting/MLing up around 65F? Once ML is complete do you drop the temp or this not necessary?

RD

Hi there guys,

Unfortunately I did not get the start of this message but I thought I had better warn you that if you innoculate Malo-Lactic before alcoholic fermentation is complete you will most definately increase your chances of higher Volitile Acidity. Today in the wine industry we even go so far as to add a product called Lysozyme, a protein extracted from egg, and helish expensive, to stop malo-lactic from starting untill the wine is completely finished alcoholic fermentation.

Regards and good luck!!!!