Cabernet has slight sour taste

[armypilot]

I was getting ready to bottle and had just completed the filter process and decided to taste the wine. I has a mild sour taste. My local store told me it was acidic. He told me the two ways to get rid of it were to add sugar and potassium sorbate. Or he said I could add this chemical (cannot remember the name) that would turn the type of acid that I have not lactic acid but it would take a few more months. I am leaning toward the sugar thing but I do not want it to be sweet. I thought of starting with 1/2 cup of sugar to the 6 gallons. Any thoughts?

 

[cmason1957]

What are you making and what have you done to it so far?

If it doesn't taste good you probably do not want to bottle it, yet.

 

[heatherd]

Before making any adjustments, my suggestion would be to get some test strips for ph to see where you actually stand.

If your ph is off, that can be adjusted.

The process he described for turning malic acid into lactic acid is called malolactic fermentation. It may or may not be possible for this batch.

Are you working with a kit? Juice bucket? Grapes? What stage are you in the process?

Heather

 

[armypilot]

It is a kit wine. It has been in secondary since June. Cabernet Sauvignon is the wine type. Anything special to do to test the Ph?

 

[cmason1957]

Since it is a kit wine, you will not want to try that turning Malic acid into lactic. That would end up with an out of balance wine. I am going to assume you have cleared this and added the included potassium sorbate, if not you will need to before considering adding sugar. I would pull out a small amount of the wine about 100 ml. Most measuring cups have ml markings. Add about a 1/4 teaspoon of sugar, stir until dissolved. Taste. See if that helps any, repeat with 1/2 teaspoon and so forth.

Assuming that you find one you like scale that up to your 23,000 ml carboy. I always go one step less than what I like, let it rest for a week or two and try again. It seems to get sweeter with time.