ML Fermentation

[Peter_Cargasacchi]

@Vincent Fritzsche

This is a good question. I honestly have no idea if or why longer ML would improve wine quality, but I might have suggested it did…before reading this thread, at least.

I guess I’ve always learned that time is an important quality issue for many things, for many different reasons. I think of disparate things like braising meat, repairing dings in surfboards with epoxy, curing concrete or cheese. Super fast primaries obviously aren’t what we’re looking for in most cases. So longer, drawn out MLs seem like they’re better. But I don’t know if it’s true, or why.

I suppose Holdredge is right. My 2008 pinot is hanging out in the 40Fs with no activity, and that’s my intention and obviously the best way to go.

Maybe Linda can chime in, but at 40 f. there’s no ml activity. Is that possibly too cold?

I say that because with no co2 evolving the wine is not protected, and as aquaeous solutions cool, gases including O2 go into solution more readily. Its sorta counter-intuitive, but colder liquids hold more gas in solution. You might wanna check your D.O. dissolved oxygen.

[john_holdredge]

@Peter Cargasacchi

@Vincent Fritzsche

This is a good question. I honestly have no idea if or why longer ML would improve wine quality, but I might have suggested it did…before reading this thread, at least.

I guess I’ve always learned that time is an important quality issue for many things, for many different reasons. I think of disparate things like braising meat, repairing dings in surfboards with epoxy, curing concrete or cheese. Super fast primaries obviously aren’t what we’re looking for in most cases. So longer, drawn out MLs seem like they’re better. But I don’t know if it’s true, or why.

I suppose Holdredge is right. My 2008 pinot is hanging out in the 40Fs with no activity, and that’s my intention and obviously the best way to go.

Maybe Linda can chime in, but at 40 f. there’s no ml activity. Is that possibly too cold?

I say that because with no co2 evolving the wine is not protected, and as aquaeous solutions cool, gases including O2 go into solution more readily. Its sorta counter-intuitive, but colder liquids hold more gas in solution. You might wanna check your D.O. dissolved oxygen.

Yeah- that’s the problem with too cold- you don’t get that little bit of activity that keeps things going.

Of course, that bit of DO can act like microxegynation, and therefore reflects a concious effort by the winemaker to always adhere to the best possible practices.

[Peter_Cargasacchi]

Sparking a memory, I’ve heard that Adam Tolmach’s (Ojai) barrel room temperature is set somewhere between 50 and 55 f. (I can’t remember,) and that he does a year long prolonged ml with very low sulfur.

Great wines.

[Vincent_Fritzsche]

I wasn’t clear (typical). It’s winter. I want the wine cold. ML will happen in spring when things warm up. The point (joke?) was that that’s what’s happening…so it must not only be my intention, it’s the BEST way to go. Right? Right?

[Linda_Baehr]

@Vincent Fritzsche

I wasn’t clear (typical). It’s winter. I want the wine cold. ML will happen in spring when things warm up. The point (joke?) was that that’s what’s happening…so it must not only be my intention, it’s the BEST way to go. Right? Right?

Right. Sure. rolls eyes [whistle2.gif]

[Eric_Anderson]

@Peter Cargasacchi

Sparking a memory, I’ve heard that Adam Tolmach’s (Ojai) barrel room temperature is set somewhere between 50 and 55 f. (I can’t remember,) and that he does a year long prolonged ml with very low sulfur.

Great wines.

But isn’t there also a higher risk that one will get away from him?

[Jeff_Brinkman]

@Eric Anderson

@Peter Cargasacchi

Sparking a memory, I’ve heard that Adam Tolmach’s (Ojai) barrel room temperature is set somewhere between 50 and 55 f. (I can’t remember,) and that he does a year long prolonged ml with very low sulfur.

Great wines.

But isn’t there also a higher risk that one will get away from him?

There’s always a risk, but it can managed. I think we manage it by religious topping, no nutrient adds during fermentation and preserved CO2. If by “get away from him” you mean microbial population explosions, I have not seen that in my 3 years here, and we generally don’t complete malo until at least May.

[Eric_Anderson]

@Jeff Brinkman

@Eric Anderson

@Peter Cargasacchi

Sparking a memory, I’ve heard that Adam Tolmach’s (Ojai) barrel room temperature is set somewhere between 50 and 55 f. (I can’t remember,) and that he does a year long prolonged ml with very low sulfur.

Great wines.

But isn’t there also a higher risk that one will get away from him?

There’s always a risk, but it can managed. I think we manage it by religious topping, no nutrient adds during fermentation and preserved CO2. If by “get away from him” you mean microbial population explosions, I have not seen that in my 3 years here, and we generally don’t complete malo until at least May.

Naw, I’m thinking secondary ferm developing in bottle. More of chance with longer or shorter MLs?

[Jeff_Brinkman]

@Eric Anderson

@Jeff Brinkman

@Eric Anderson

But isn’t there also a higher risk that one will get away from him?

There’s always a risk, but it can managed. I think we manage it by religious topping, no nutrient adds during fermentation and preserved CO2. If by “get away from him” you mean microbial population explosions, I have not seen that in my 3 years here, and we generally don’t complete malo until at least May.

Naw, I’m thinking secondary ferm developing in bottle. More of chance with longer or shorter MLs?

I guess it’s all relative. If you go 8-10 months before finishing, but you age for 14-18 months, I think it works out. We don’t bottle with any residual malo and we haven’t had any bbls that haven’t finished. I check malos with a FTIR instrument and we usually have below detectable levels, so I don’t really worry about restarts.

[Linda_Baehr]

@Jeff Brinkman

I guess it’s all relative. If you go 8-10 months before finishing, but you age for 14-18 months, I think it works out. We don’t bottle with any residual malo and we haven’t had any bbls that haven’t finished. I check malos with a FTIR instrument and we usually have below detectable levels, so I don’t really worry about restarts.

By FTIR, I’m assuming you are refering to the Winescan? We had one at Fresno State, and we noticed that the numbers for most measurements were pretty accurate, but for malic acid, once the levels got below 50-60 ppm, the numbers became less and less accurate as compared to something like an enzymatic test on the spec.

[Jeff_Brinkman]

@Linda Baehr

@Jeff Brinkman

I guess it’s all relative. If you go 8-10 months before finishing, but you age for 14-18 months, I think it works out. We don’t bottle with any residual malo and we haven’t had any bbls that haven’t finished. I check malos with a FTIR instrument and we usually have below detectable levels, so I don’t really worry about restarts.

By FTIR, I’m assuming you are refering to the Winescan? We had one at Fresno State, and we noticed that the numbers for most measurements were pretty accurate, but for malic acid, once the levels got below 50-60 ppm, the numbers became less and less accurate as compared to something like an enzymatic test on the spec.

Yes, it’s a new winescan, and don’t burst my bubble about it, I’m still in the honeymoon phase!

I actually have been calibrating it for the last year against both ETS and the enzymatic kits that I have here and I get really good correlation between them. Plus the R-squared on my malic assay is over 0.9

I think the thing about the winescan is the calibration and continuing to calibrate. It’s worked well for the last year and a half for me…

[Linda_Baehr]

Ours was a pretty old model. Not sure if that had anything to do with it.
I’m just jealous. :?

[Jeff_Brinkman]

@Linda Baehr

Ours was a pretty old model. Not sure if that had anything to do with it.
I’m just jealous. :?

You should be! I can do pH, TA, Tartaric, Malic, RS, VA, EtOH, 280nm and CO2 in 30sec, 42 at a time!

[N_Weis]

Lucky bastard.

I’m looking at an OenoFoss. Poor man’s Winescan.

I am worried a bit, though, about accuracy. At least at the low end of the glu/fru and malic spectrum. Probably won’t eliminate other labwork for us (and can’t do F/TSO2).

[Jeff_Brinkman]

@Nate Weis

Lucky bastard.

I’m looking at an OenoFoss. Poor man’s Winescan.

I am worried a bit, though, about accuracy. At least at the low end of the glu/fru and malic spectrum. Probably won’t eliminate other labwork for us (and can’t do F/TSO2).

That’s the only thing about the winescan is the lack of f/t SO2 assays. Then again, a $500 autotitrator gets close enough for me in that regard. The nice thing about the winescan flex is that it can do juice chems and fermenting must chems as well. Not cheap, but ooooohhh so nice.