Sugar Free

With my fermenting Chardonnay settling to stillness over the weekend, it was time to conduct a simple experiment to determine whether primary fermentation was complete.  A Clinitest table is deposited into a test tube of .5 ml of wine, which will immediately boil and change color.  The shade of the color, which can range from blue, to green, to orange to brown, tells you what percentage sugar content remains.  In my case, the sample turned a dark green, suggesting only 0.2% residual sugar and marking fermentation as all but complete.  As with each step in the winemaking process, I also tasted my wine for the first time.  Author Jeff Cox correctly points out that you should taste this newly formed wine like you would castor oil, which while sound advice, is still a bit harsh on the castor oil, because at least it has other applications.

I combined the wine into one 5-gallon and two 1-gallon carboys to eliminate the extra space at the top.  From this point on any excess exposure to oxygen should be avoided.  Most reds and full-bodied whites now undergo a step called malolactic (or secondary) fermentation (“MLF”).  The procedure is similar to the primary fermentation, in that a powdered bacteria is added to the wine, but in this case rather than converting sugar to alcohol, the process converts malic acid to lactic acid, while ultimately reducing the wine’s TA and lessening the palate’s perceived strength of the acidity.  To explain this further would require a working knowledge of the characteristics of acid, which I do not possess.  Nonetheless, all the books say that if you want a buttery Chardonnay you should put your wine through MLF, so Land O’Lakes here I come.