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Seyval Crystals

Just finished the second racking of a 5 gal batch of Seyval blanc wine. This is from fresh pressed juice. In addition to the normal sediment in the carboy was a good amount of brownish crystals of some type, the size of rock salt. There was a large amount present when I racked off the primary container. There is no noticeable off aroma. When I tasted the wine, which is somewhat tart, and there is a sort of fizzy feeling on the tongue. Is this normal for Seyval? If not how do I proceed?

Reply to
genekay
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Sounds like tartrate crytals, it's normal. This was a high acid year in the northeast, where are the grapes from?

The 'spritzyness' may be the wine finishing fermentation, dissolved CO2 or MLF if the bubbles are really tiny... Regards, Joe

Reply to
Joe Sallustio

Yes, probably tartrate crystals but I never heard of them being as large as rock salt. I would not worry about them. The fuzziness will go away when the wine degasses. This will occur naturally as it bulk ages for 4 to 6 months. Maybe less. If you cannot wait to bottle, then you can force degassing by stirring vigorously. I would recommend waiting depending on your patience.

Ray

Reply to
Ray

I agree that this year's juices are much more acidic than usual... (Walkers, Western NY). If it's this year's vintage, continue to cold stabilize so you get out as many crystals as possible, because this supposedly reduces total acids in the wine.

Mark L.

Reply to
Mark L.

Yeah, it does reduce total acid, and due to some chemistry that I won't go into it also drops your pH (if it is below 3.65 or so forget the actual figure).

This is a technique for reducing total acid and getting your pH where you want it for higher pH lower TA wines

Reply to
Robert Lee

I know; around here rock salt is used on roads to deice and it's pretty big. I assumed it was just coarse salt size. Sevyal can be nice dry, but this years will probably be pretty tart, I would probably deacidify too.

All my Northern whites came in from 12 g/l to 22 g/l for catawba. I used chalk to reduce them to 9, (amelioration and chalk on the catawba). I also used 71B in hopes of reducing the malic, since I seem to recall unripe grapes are more malic than tartaric. Time will tell, this is not the best must I ever worked with. Regards, Joe

Reply to
Joe Sallustio

The fresh juice was from the finger lakes region. The starting Brix -

19.8, PH 3.43 and TA 1.00. Those are their figures, I did not check PH or Ta. I did adjusted the SG to 1.095. The size of the crystals vary from sand size to the near rock salt size. There is no sign of bubbles, just the a fizzy sensation on the tongue when tasted. I will continue to cold bulk age and monitor the progess. Thanks for all replys.
Reply to
genekay

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