Tart tasting wine

The pH is already high. You normally want it below 3.5 If you drop the TA, pH is going higher and that would not be good. I don't think you want to do that but it is your call. You have one of the dreaded high pH/high TA conditions. Very hard to treat.

How long have you aged it? You might want to bulk age it a bit longer to see if it really needs further corrections. If you are really dead set on bottling, I might suggest a heretical solutions. Increase the RS slightly. Not enough to make it sweet. Maybe not enough to taste. Just enough to cover some of the tartness.

Just a wild suggestion.

Ray

Hi Nick

Has this wine been cold stabilized?

Regards

Frank

I knew both were high after fermentation and like you wrote, I didn't want to drop the TA any lower for fear to getting the pH up too high.

It's been been bulk aged in 5 gallon carboys for 5 months now. And no, I'm not dead set on bottling this weekend. I'm more dead set on getting some drinkable wine. :-)

I kept it stored in the basement, so the temperature was in the 55-60 degree F range.

That's not very cold, it will probably drop some crystals over the next year.

A TA of 5.3 is really not that high, are you sure it's tartness and not tannins or just 'greenness'? Why don't you pull off a bottles worth and top the carboy? Keep the sample in the fridge for a few weeks and see what it ends up like.

Reds at 5 months are kind of off tasting, several more months may make a huge difference.

Joe

I agree with Joe. At 5 months acidity of red wines can taste kind of funny. After a year you might find that a little more acid to adjust the pH down would not hurt. But I cannot ever tell until it is well ages. If you like oak, have you added any? That can help sometimes. What you want is to be able to get the pH down in the 3.4 to 3.5 range and not have it taste like lemonade. Age will probably help, oak might help (I would try it), and if all else fails, just a tiny bit of sugar (as a last resort). I do not like to adjust my red wines until they are between 1 and 2 years old and do not bottle them until they are about 2+ years old. But I have been making wine for a long time and have the luxury of a backlog. ;o)

Ray

I would say 5.3 is actually on the low acid side, especially if the pH is higher. I would recheck that measurement.

I wouldn't be concerned about the pH that much; there are plenty of premium California wines coming out these days that are around 3.7.

Did the wine go through ML?

Pp

Those numbers are quite reasonable for a Cabernet. I wouldn't monkey around with the TA if it were my wine.

OTOH, how confident are you that those are accurate readings? If they're correct, I suspect that you simply got underripe fruit to begin with. Another possibility is that the wine needs degassing. Dissolved CO2 can make the wine seem tart.

Tom S

Nick,

Where did you get your grapes??? Hunts Point? Are they Papagni??? If you got "fresh" grapes from the NYC area chances are they are not too high in acid or TA. I've never NOT added alot of tartaric acid and this year was no exception. If the above statements are true then I would say that you may have either pressed too hard or you just have to wait a little longer. Right now my wine from "fresh" california grapes has that "chalky" feel to it in the mouth. Still very young. I find that the wine really doesn't start coming around till after the summer. I'd let it bulk age at least through Sept.

Bob

pp wrote:

Thanks for all the suggestions! I've mulled things over and will attempt to condense all suggestions and questions into this one post.

First off some answers. I bought the grapes at Corrado's in Clifton. Unfortunatley I don't recall the brand name, Bob. And at Corrado's they pressed the graps for me, I just came home with the juice. I did take a bucket full of skins and added that to the fermentaion.

The wine did not go through ML, Pp. I will recheck acid levels again this weekend. I think if I erred, it would be on the low side.

I wish I had a backlog! I wouldn't be as anxious as I am/was to bottle. I did add oak chips after the first racking and took them out after the second racking, Ray.

I think I'll hold off on the degassing suggestion or any additions and instead I put a bottle in the fridge for retesting in a few weeks.

I tasted it again last night and would say that it could be characterized as being green. Time may be my best friend here. Well, hopefully that's the case. I'm very happy nobody informed me that I messed up and to look into changing to vinegar!

After more thought, I'd say that Tom S's suggestion of dissovled C02 is "probably" the culprit. I even questioned my OWN "pressed to hard" statement after I wrote it.

Bob

Nick Ruchalski wrote: