A friend's Syrah grapes have a very high pH of 3.9, but he doesn't want to
add acid because he is happy with the TA of .68.

What is his best course of action?

Thanks
Brian

I have had this sort of problems several times. I have tried to add acid to
get the pH down and generally I have not liked the results. When I have
just let it make as is I have come out with some pretty good California
style wines. My suggestion would be to leave it alone but drink it young (1
to 2.5 years) as it probably will not age well. Some others may have some
special techniques to treat this situation but ...

Ray

"Brian Lundeen" > wrote in message
...
> A friend's Syrah grapes have a very high pH of 3.9, but he doesn't want to
> add acid because he is happy with the TA of .68.
>
> What is his best course of action?
>
> Thanks
> Brian
>
>

"Brian Lundeen" > wrote in message >...
> A friend's Syrah grapes have a very high pH of 3.9, but he doesn't want to
> add acid because he is happy with the TA of .68.
>
> What is his best course of action?
>
> Thanks
> Brian


DRINK IT...
:-)

"Brian Lundeen" > wrote in message
...
> A friend's Syrah grapes have a very high pH of 3.9, but he doesn't want to
> add acid because he is happy with the TA of .68.
>
> What is his best course of action?

We've covered this problem (high pH, high TA) several times this crush. The
answer is the same: hit it with tartaric before fermentation to bring it
down to ~3.4pH, _ignore_ the TA, and chill out the excess TA after
fermentation. Piece of cake...

Tom S

"Tom S" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Brian Lundeen" > wrote in message
> ...
> > A friend's Syrah grapes have a very high pH of 3.9, but he doesn't want
to
> > add acid because he is happy with the TA of .68.
> >
> > What is his best course of action?
>
> We've covered this problem (high pH, high TA) several times this crush.
The
> answer is the same: hit it with tartaric before fermentation to bring it
> down to ~3.4pH, _ignore_ the TA, and chill out the excess TA after
> fermentation. Piece of cake...
>
> Tom S
>
>
When you chill to bring out the excess TA does the ph raise back up again?

Rick

"ziggy" > wrote in message
...
> When you chill to bring out the excess TA does the ph raise back up again?

Good question, but it's hard to say for sure. By the time ML completes the
wine will be at a higher pH than you adjusted it to though.

The reason I suggested adjusting the pH from 3.9 in the first place is that
if you did nothing at all to that must, by the time fermentation and ML were
complete the wine would be so flat you could bottle it in _envelopes_! It'd
probably go well with tortillas and flounder though. ;^D

Tom S

This describes my Syrah grapes as well. PH=4.0 TA=.67. I adjusted to
PH=3.5 with LOTS of tartaric (it seemed to be a good buffer) and will cold
stabilize later to drop the excess TA. Might need a bit of potassium
carbonate even, but as long as you don't use too much it's really
undetectable in the wine. So I agree with Tom S about adjusting before
fermentation if you want a wine that isn't flabby. There's probably not a
lot of malic acid left in these grapes, but ML will bring the PH up a bit as
MIGHT cold stabilization later on but it's better than trying to age and
bottle a wine at PH 4.0+


John

"Brian Lundeen" > wrote in message
...
> A friend's Syrah grapes have a very high pH of 3.9, but he doesn't want to
> add acid because he is happy with the TA of .68.
>
> What is his best course of action?
>
> Thanks
> Brian
>
>