The earlier you add acid, the better it will integrate. Ideally you would add during cold soak or right when fermentation starts. If you add acid right before bottling, it had better be a small amount or it will stick out like a sore thumb.
I know people who add acid, then chill the wine to around 20FâŚyou end up lowering the pH without a big jump in TA. Iâve always thought one of the âsecretsâ of French wine is low pH and low TA. The wine is refreshing but you donât worry about the enamel on your teeth.
Of course pH and acidity donât go strictly together, but they go pretty much hand in hand. Iâve understood that wineâs pH goes up if tartaric acid drops out of solution, unless thereâs a big pH buffer that keeps the pH pretty much the same. So Iâm not sure if that trick is something that works every time everywhere. More like a special trick for special occasions.
The wine is refreshing but you donât worry about the enamel on your teeth.
That just doesnât make any sense.
Otto,
I last studied chemistry when Jack Kennedy was President so maybe somebody else should answer this.
All I know is that it seems to work most of the time.
Well let me just say that itâs bad for your teeth anytime your mouthâs pH drops below 5,5. So it doesnât matter how much there is acids or how low the pH is, itâs bad for your teeth anyway.
And since pH is a logarithmic scale, a small drop in pH is quite big. A big drop, like from pH 4 to 3, increases the ion concentration in the wine tenfold. So saying âless acids but lower pH is better for your enamelâ is just crazy talk.
People make a bigger deal out of it than it is. Any wine properly acidified tastes utterly normal and the idea that one could pick it out blind is pretty crazy.
When tartrates (potassium bitartrate) drop out/precipitate of wine: if the wineâs pH is below ~3.95pH then precipitating will lower the pH, if the pH is higher then the pH goes up. It usually reported as above/below 3.65pHâŚwhich is true when tartrates drop out of a water solution. But alc raises this up, in the case of wine to about 3.95pH.
One of the more amazing things about wine chemistry imo!
+1000
Not sure why all the claims of being able to âtaste/tellâ acid adds. When properly done, no way in hell. Unless, of course, one just goes to town with adds and does not do enough blending trials up front. Which I find very tough to believe these days with some trials taking a seriously good chunk of time and effort, with a bunch of palates involved in the process.
And going back to âcitrus notesâ post above, Iâve picked up citrus notes in Pinots made from SLH, RRV and (West) Sonoma Coast, wines I KNOW were not acidulated while picked on a âripeâ side, mid 14s for reference. Not often, but enough to tell me citrus notes do happen in Pinot, naturally and not through manipulation.
As for âpricklyâ impressions on the tongue, unless bubbly or trapped CO2, of course, one should really look at cooper(s) used. Its the overly aggressive oak tannins, my bet, and nothing to do with acidulation. And at times with (not fully lignified stems) whole cluster ferments, but mostly oak (cooper, really). Just personal experience, with a number of wines I KNOW how were vinified, from scratch to finish, with no acid adds.
I canât speak for anybody else, but at least I havenât mentioned any citrus ânotesâ. I talked about a citrus âcutâ meaning a tart, lemony sourness that sticks out from a borderline overripe, jammy and full-bodied Shiraz like a sore thumb. I certainly agree that it is impossible to tell when a wine properly acidified with a light hand, but I was not talking about such wines.
Iâm very familiar with the citrus notes some Pinot Noirs can exhibit and I want to emphasize that it is a very different thing, since thatâs a flavor and not a taste (as in five basic tastes). This is not a prickly CO2 feeling either - I know how to differentiate acidity from fizz.
Oh yes, that rings a bell. Mostâve encountered this stuff when reading some wine books long time ago. Something to do with ions being freed up below 3,65 and protons above. Didnât remember / know that it is that high for wine. If itâs dependent on alcohol, I guess there must be quite significant variation on the pH value, eg. when working with a 8% Mosel Riesling and a 15,5% Napa Merlot.
+1
Well, going back to the reason I brought this up, the wines I tasted (several vineyards from the same producer in 2018) all tasted quite acidic and the fruit lass âprominentâ and more muted than usual with this producer than any other previous vintages, and for me to complain about acidity is pretty much unheard of. Since 2018 was, at least what Iâve heard, quite good in CA for PN, a warm vintage but not excessively hot, I could only guess that either the wines were picked too early (?), or perhaps the wines were acidifiedâŚor, to your comment, perhaps over-acidified.
So It made me wonder:
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Can you tell the difference between a wine that is acidic because it was acidified, either with a heavy hand or at the wrong time, vs. a wine that was picked too early?
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What happens to the acids over time as the wine matures? If the wines are noticeably acidic when released, does that change over the years, or does it persist? (The 96 Red Burgs always maintained their somewhat âacidicâ cut or character, but whereas all I tasted was acid when they were released, I have had a number of beautiful wines 20 plus years out.)
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Acid wouldnât mute a wine, but a muted wine could seem out of balance. Iâd be looking at why the wine is muted. It might be perfectly fine in a couple years when the wine wakes up.
To get a good idea of how acidic wines evolve: Nebbiolo. Neb is unusually low in malic acid, so MLF doesnât do much.
Not knowing the winery, the vineyards or the vintage I cannot speak to what the wines are like, what they did with picking and fermentation and any other things. The wines seem to stand out to you as being different than something you are used to from them and, knowing you, I presume you know of what you speak.
What I do know is that acidity is really, really complicated. Iâm not a chemist nor do I even make any sort of pretense about being one. I donât do any lab work because I wouldnât trust the results. Even 25 years in I struggle with my own interpretations and courses of action with the juice panels I receive from a certified lab. All TAs (titratable acidity) are not equal. They are largely made up of malic and tartaric acid but, in some cases the total g/l (grams per liter) of those two acids can be higher than the g/l of the TA itself. They can be the same or lower. There are times when the malic g/l is greater than the tartaric g/l (not desirable). The potassium levels in the must contribute to the ability of the must to assimilate added acid but thereâs no real equation for how that works. Malic fermentation, in theory, lowers TA by 2/3rd of a g/l for each g/l of malic acid present, however in the real world it doesnât always work like that.
I could go on and on and on about it. Itâs complicated which is one of the many reasons you attempt to farm in manners that bring things into acidic balance when the fruit is picked but that is its own form of artistic science.
So, as to why these wines tasted âshrillâ is anyoneâs guess without really specific information. I just know that thoughtfully considered acid adds are utterly undetectable.
In my experience this would have a much bigger effect than you are giving it credit for. Anything that âbeats upâ a wine will mute and tamp down fruit, body, and aromatics, and will not do anything to structure (acidity and tannin both.) Since structure is in proportion to the total experience of the wine, acids will present as significantly higher than it would have in other circumstances. You also do say that the wine was just released, bottle shock will have the same effect (and for our wines at least, even after the wine is out bottle shock, the balance between structure and fruit, etc will favor structure most in the beginning and build in fruit and weight over time.)
+1 more for what Jim said (both times), and PeterH too.
I used to think I could taste added acidity. Sometimes you can, but sometimes Iâll swear a wine was acidified and it wasnât. My Gamay can have searing acidity. People ask - did you add that? No, itâs actually a challenge with the grape sometimes.
In my experience, tartaric is almost universally what is added. Malic is used rarely, maybe in low malic years where you want it to have more soft ML character in the wine. You add malic to essentially extend the ML fermentation, giving the final wine more lactic acid than it naturally had. Iâve never heard of anyone adding malic to a wine that wonât go through ML. Citric is used sparingly because ML bacteria work on it to produce VA. I have seen citric used at bottling for white or rose wine thatâs going to be filtered, to give a little acid pop. But good old tartaric, which is stable and plenty powerful, will give you the acid sensation that might make you think someone added citric.
I donât acidify my wines and in part I use whole cluster sparingly because potassium in stems can bind with some acid and cause pH to rise. I did acidify when ânecessaryâ way back, but over the last decade I just stopped doing it. Just doesnât make my wines better and looking back I think I didnât need to do even what little I did. Itâs a mystery.
Are you saying John is a liar? After all, he said that everybody acidifies. If thatâs true, itâs not possible that you donât acidify! ![[snort.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/b/bdc3944606213c4dca6c1169cf0a166c8bc4f8c9.gif "snort.gif"){kind=small}
Many many moons ago Kevin Harvey said something that stuck with me. To paraphrase: Whenever you start to generalize about red Burgundy, American pinot noir, and the people who make them, you will make a misteak.
I have no beef with that.
Over-added acid hits front of your tongue and feels like tannins but tannins are picked up in the rear of the tongue and on the mid-palate. Itâs easy to pick up acid adds in Cabs that produce that sensation.