The barrels of Pinot Noir from the Start Your Own Winery completed malo lactic fermentation. I sent samples to the lab to confirm this to be the case. The next step in the winemaking process is to add so2 to protect the wine from oxygen and other contaminants while it ages and matures. So2 bonds with oxygen, so it acts as sort of a scavenger seeking out and attaching itself to oxygen molecules that are present in the wine. Our objective is to add enough so2 to scavenge what is in the wine and to have enough “free” so2 remaining to protect the wine from any oxygen, bacteria, or spoilage organisms that may sneak their way into the wine during the ageing process. So our first addition will be fairly aggressive. Once the addition has been made we’ll want to leave the wine alone for a while, simply because It is not pleasant to drink immediately after the addition has been made. We’ll come back in about 45 days and taste again after it has settled down a bit.
End of Malo Lactic Fermentation
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on Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008 at 5:32 pm and is filed under Start Your Own Winery.
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