Malo-lactic fermentation

Here's my opinion,

I think you should add tartaric only to adjust the PH to a reasonable number. 3.5, or thereabouts. Then do malolactic fermentation and sulfite according to the PH you end up with. The reason I suggest that is that lysozyme activity declines with time and unless you can sterile filter you won't know if your wine will be stable for a long time in the bottle if malic acid remains.

Regards,

John

John DeFiore wrote "I think you should add tartaric only to adjust the PH to a reasonable number. 3.5, or thereabouts. Then do malolactic fermentation and sulfite according to the PH you end up with. The reason I suggest that is that lysozyme activity declines with time and unless you can sterile filter you won't know if your wine will be stable for a long time in the bottle if malic acid remains."

John (and others that know how to use lysozyme) - It's my understanding that lysozyme works quickly and destroys the cell walls of malo-lactic bacteria. I make a couple of white wines that I want to avoid ML fermentation in. I also make red wines that I innoculate with ML culture so the cellar is full of the ML bacteria floating around with everything else. If you get the white wines into the bottle, after treatment with lysozyme, is there any need to sterile filter? I guess the question is does lysozyme destroy ML bacteria or only stun them.

Bill Frazier Olathe, Kansas

That's all true, and you would probably be OK bottling with 250-500 ppm of lysozyme. In fact, I use it routinely now even on wines that I'm fairly sure are done with ML, just to be sure that they are stable. (It doesn't seem to have any downside except price. Blind studies have shown very small taste differences, but not in any objectionable direction.) The slight worry is that there are some wild strains of malolactic spoilage bacteria that are not very sensitive to lysozyme. Odds are you'd be OK and this is just a theoretical concern. I usually choose to do ML because it's (usually) not hard and it (usually) guarantees stability.

Regards,

John