My wine's TA is 0.87%. What should I do?

I am not sure why Jeff Cox said that. The reaction of calcium carbonate in wine is fairly simple and complete. The H ions (the actual active part of that acid) react with the carbonate ions to form CO2 gas and water. The Calcium ions will combine with tartaric acid and precipitate out. there should be no place for an off flavor to occure there.

Unless in his experience he drops out tto much of the tartaric acid, leaving a malic dominated wine, which would taste terrible. The correct thing to do would be to TLC the wine to find out the relative proportions of each acid. If you have a lot of malic acid, calcium carbonate would be unadvisable. It you have mostly tartaric acid, calcium carbonate (or potassium carbonate) would work fine for you.

You are right, your sulfite level is too high for MLF. I would not sweeten, that really is out of style for that wine.

If worse comes to worse, get another batch of wine going, do not sulfite it (so you can have it undergo MLF if needed) and then blend the two after any acid adjustment you can do to each. the second batch you would want to knock out as much of the acid as possible so I would use Lalvin 71B-1122 in addition to MLF and cold stabilization.

Franco wrote:

I don't get that either, I use calcium carbonate more than anything else. I would do a double salt process, maybe shoot for a reduction of

2g/l for now. Measure out the amount needed for 6 gallon , pull off 2 gallons and add the calcium carbonate to it. It will foam like crazy and may turn black. It's normal. That will eat all of the tartaric first then work on malic. Then add it back to the bunch after a few days.

Another option is potassium bicarbonate, I might go that route.

Joe

With all respect to my more scientifically learned associates here, I'd urge a little caution before jumping to more adjustments. First, TA is not the "be all, end all" that some books treat it as; I'd first ask; what is the pH? If that is within 'range', I'd not mess with the acididty. Second, I'd like to know more about what you mean by 'harsh'; is it acididty you taste, or tannins? With a young Cab/Merlot blend, a harsh tannin might be a good thing - a few years would solve that riddle. How old is the wine? Meaning - where are you at in the wine's development? I'll assume this is an '05; if so, you might want to let the wine age for another 6 months, test and taste again. And be sure to discrern between an overly acid taste from a tannic taste - the word "harsh" suggests tannin to me, more than an acid balance issue. And that's not necessarily a bad thing!

Good luck!

Ric:

-pH is 3.3

-I had a couple of experienced people taste it and they commented that it tasted both tannic and a bit acid.

-I fermented this batch in September of 2005 and it's been bulk aging.

Kit manufactures provide a pretty foolproof product these days. I suggest you follow the kit manufacturer's instructions "to the letter", and I suspect you will end up with a pretty decent wine.

Later, A. J.

What kit was this? Normally, with kits you shouldn't need to do any adjustments to get a balanced wine, so I would agree with the folks here advising to exercise caution before doing any adjustments. Kits in general are different beasts than fresh grape/juice wines. You can alaway contant the kit manufacturer, they might give you the technical data where the acid measurements should be.

If this is your first kit, just follow the instructions to get a feel for things.

Pp

Joe:

Let's say that I want to reduce TA from 0.87% to 0.7%. So I have a reduction of 0.17% and a volume of 6 gallons. What is the formula for calculating the amount of calcium carbonate needed? Thanks.

Franco - First I agree with those that said to contact the kit maker and discuss the high acid problem with them. If you decide to lower acid chemically I would do the following, using potassium bicarbonate. Be sure your wine sample is at room temperature and not cold. The reaction will not be complete if the wine is cold. And, cold condition the wine following the reaction to precipitate potassium bitartrate that is formed.

Potassium bicarbonate will neutralize 0.1%TA for every 3.4 grams K bicarb. added to a gallon of wine. To neutralize 0.17%TA you would need 5.8 grams K bicarb. per gallon. But, it's wise to add the chemical slowly, testing pH and TA as you go.

Here's a small scale experiment you can do to approximate acid neutralization for your whole batch.

1. Add 2.0 grams K bicarb. to enough distilled water to make 200 ml. (0.01 grams K bicarb./ml)
2. Measure 50 ml wine
3. Add the equivalent of 5.8 grams K bicarb. / gallon wine to the sample (8 ml K bicarb. solution contains 0.08 grams K bicarb to treat 50 ml wine)
4. After the reaction is complete chill the sample overnight to simulate cold conditioning
5. Warm to room temperature and test pH and %TA

Clyde Gill offered this method several years ago. It works pretty well.

Bill Frazier Olathe, Kansas USA

A pH of 3.3 combined with a somewhat "harsh" (tannic) taste (in such a young wine) suggests, to me, that you should NOT make adjustments. One of the easiest mistakes to make is to over-react and try to 'fix' a wine - before the wine has evolved to where you can really appreciate what it is going to be. A Cab/Merlot would "ideally" be in a pH range of 3.3 to 3.5. I would suggest that the high TA reading is immaterial. IMHO, many home winemakers put too much emphasis on TA, and not enough on pH nd VA. Rather, think of your wine as young, and still far from what it will be when ready to drink. Many, many Cab/Merlot blends take years to mature. Think "Bordeaux". Do what you think best - but I really think that these numebrs are well within tolerances - don't over-react and try to modify your wine when it likely is doing just fine.

I don't agree that these values are well within tolerance on this particular wine if the measurements are correct. I do agree with everything you say generally but if this wine really has a pH of 3.3 and a TA near 9g/l it will never come around. I can't see waiting years and years for a kit wine. (It's odd that a kit would come out high in acid, I do agree with that.)

I'm thinking a Merlot Cab blend over a TA of 6.5 will always taste too tart, I have made a lot of reds and never liked any of them when the TA was much over 6, even after 5 years. Were they awful? No. Were they well balanced? No. I can't see a dry red over 6g/l ever tasting balanced but maybe that is my palate.

I would bump it down as Bill mentioned with potassium bicarbonate. I would do a 1 gm/l reduction first and see what the taste and measurements came back as. I doubt a reduction of 2g/l would bump the pH to above 3.65, I would be watching that as I went and stop there.

I wonder if it would make sense for Franco to buy a bottle of something similar he likes and test that. That would give him the reality check he needs. He would have a benchmark on those measurements and at least know whether the values seem to be in agreement. If it tastes good and the acid measurements come out much lower than the kit you would know that higher acid was contributing to the taste and it might be worthwhile to bump the acid down.

I have had higher acid Pinot's from France that I thought were awful but they were importing them so someone must like them. I know my preference is for lower acids but am not saying everyone likes that. I usually shoot for a TA of 5 to 5.5 g/l on a red if it's for drinking in

1 to 3 years.

Joe

Joe:

Part of the reason why my wine is high in acid is because I added tartaric acid before fermentation. I bought a defective acid testing kit (Carlson). The NaOH was about 40% stronger than it should have been. So I tested the TA and I got a low number, and I added about 0.1% of tartaric. Yes, I know, I should have followed the manufacturer's directions to the "T", but my intention wasn't to just make a wine, but rather to learn some winemaking techniques. Following a recipe wouldn't have taught me anything.

Two days ago I tested a sample of a commercial wine I liked (1998 Silver Oak Cabernet), and the pH was 3.7 and the TA was 0.55%.

Interesting thread - as are all your postings here Joe. I'm not going to argue that the TA is high - my point is that TA is not an absolute. Too often we home winemakers ignore taste, pH, and VA. The strength and compostion of that acid is arguably more important that the titratable acidity (IMHO). I was also intrigued by the use of the word "harsh" as a taste descriptor. An acid problem would usually generate words like "sour", "tart", etc. "Harsh" sounds to me like a young, tannic wine. This is what makes winemaking an art - there aren't perfect answers!

Also of interest - "drinking in 1 to 3 years". Sometimes, a wine WANTS to be an aged wine before it's drinkable! chuckle I just read a very provocative review of a '47 Bordeaux that is still prime. Wouldn't I like to have a bottle of that!

If you did the TA test _before fermentation_, then the measurement is useless even if the test kit wasn't defective. I've posted this several time before but here goes again - you can't measure TA in kits before fermentation because some acids are bound to other compounds when the juice is heated for concentration/pasteurization. Because of that, you'll get an artificially low TA reading. I've also learned the hard way on a Semillon/Chardonnay kit that tested around 4-5g/L before ferment and ended at 9g/L after the ferment and acid adjustment (I believe about 2g/L).

If you want to test the acid level for kits, you have to fully ferment the juice, degass a sample and then do the TA measurement.

You'll need to take out at least the amount of tartaric that you've added.

Pp

Since you know your measurement technique is fine you seem good to go. Watch the pH as you add your acid reducer, if it gets to 3.65 you may want to stop for a bit and retaste it. I have bottled at 3.8 with no issues, you can't get enough SO2 in there to really protect it but it hasn't been an issue for me so far.

Joe

Good points all. I agree taste trumps measurements and that is coming from a measurement and controls guy, it's hard to admit...:)

I still have a Chancellor from 97 that isn't ready. I open one a year. It's black with tannins and the acid was a bit too high. It's almost there....

Joe