Lysozyme added....talk to me in May!

Well, now that the wine has been racked and sulfited lightly, today it was time to add lysozyme. Four ounces of 5% solution was added to the carboy. This naturally-occurring enzyme (which can be found in egg whites, among other places) kills bacteria by breaking down the cell walls. The main purpose of using it is to kill off the malolactic bacteria, so they do not become active again later, potentially producing CO2 to pop the cork out of a finished wine in a bottle. In theory, there should be no more malic acid in the wine, so the malolactic bacteria should not "come back to life" but you can never be sure what will happen if you give someone a bottle of wine and they store it in warm conditions (improperly!) and there is a smidge malic acid in there. So the best course of action is to kill off all the bacteria in the carboy with the lysozyme.

Now, I will let the wine sit for 3 months, so don't expect anything new until May!

On the bright side, I just ordered 250 pounds of fresh Chilean grapes from Beer & Wine Hobby in Woburn MA for delivery in May. Who knew I was 20 minutes from one of the largest beer and winemaking stores on the east coast?? I just found it a few weeks ago (thanks Mia!) They bring in fresh Chilean grapes in the spring and fresh California grapes in the fall. So I'll be starting two new cuvées of wine in May--another pinot noir and a malbec!

Jacques

Finally Malolactic is finished!

Well, after three weeks, the malolactic fermentation finally finished. The tiny bubbles trickled off to nothing and it was time to rack the wine off the lees (sediment) and allow it to chill down in the cellar, which is now 55 degrees in the dead of winter. Given the pH of around 3.8, I added 50 ppm (1/2 teaspoon) of Meta (meta bisulfate) to the new, clean 6 gallon carboy, and then elevated the full carboy on a stack of buckets to begin racking. "Racking" is just a fancy name for the process of siphoning off the wine into another carboy, leaving the lees (sediment composed of dead yeast cells, grape chunks, etc.) behind. Of course as you leave some of the sediment behind, you also end up with a new carboy that is not totally full. That's the reason I was cultivating another half-gallon jug of the excess wine that didn't fit into the carboy after fermentation. It is used to top off the new carboy.

Christine helped with the process and took some pictures (note shot of the lees at the bottom of the carboy). Then we had an opportunity to taste a little bit of the wine. It's good! Fruity, quite drinkable, and simple as we have not used any oak yet.

Now, we have a few months of cellaring in the carboy before the next step....

Malolactic Fermentation continues...

Well, it has been three weeks and malolactic fermentation is still underway. Tiny bubbles continue to be produced, although they are getting pretty small. I expect that MLF will be done within a week. Keep checking back!