High Ph after MLF

Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum

Help Support Winemaking Talk - Winemaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
For the numbers people, here is a sample of some Paso wines and their stats, note that some of these wines have significant residual sugar probably to balance acidity, also probably sterile filtered.

A cab with 7.3 g/l residual sugar? I guess not all that surprising, but wow.

Many of these are also award winning wines.

Vintage 2016
Varietal Petite Sirah
Appellation Paso Robles
Harvest Date October 2016
Acid 6.30 g/L
pH 3.55
Bottling Date March 2019
Residual Sugar 3.00 g/L
Alcohol % 14.7

Vintage 2012
Varietal Cabernet Sauvignon
Appellation Paso Robles
pH 3.7
Bottling Date October 2014
Residual Sugar 7.30 g/L
Alcohol % 14.1

Vintage 2017
Varietal Malbec
Appellation Paso Robles
pH 3.8
Acid 5.8 g/l
Bottling Date April 2019
Residual Sugar 1.9 g/L
Alcohol % 14.7

Vintage 2016
Varietal Syrah/Viognier
Appellation Paso Robles
pH 3.77
Acid 5.9 g/l
Bottling Date April 2019
Residual Sugar 5.0 g/L
Alcohol % 13.6

Vintage 2016
Varietal Cabernet Sauvignon
Appellation Paso Robles
Harvest Date September 2016
Acid 6.60 g/L
pH 3.55
Bottling Date September 2018
Residual Sugar 5.00 g/L
Alcohol % 14.9
Wine Enthusiast 93, DOUBLE GOLD - San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition • GOLD - San Francisco International Wine Competition

Vintage 2015
Varietal Merlot
Appellation Paso Robles
Harvest Date September 2015
Acid 6.70 g/L
pH 3.49
Bottling Date March 2018
Residual Sugar 3.00 g/L
Alcohol % 14.5
Gold – Denver International Wine Competition Awards

Vintage 2015
Varietal Cabernet Sauvignon
Appellation Paso Robles
Harvest Date October 2015
Acid 6.20 g/L
pH 3.59
Bottling Date March 2018
Residual Sugar 2.70 g/L
Alcohol % 13.5

Release 2016
Varietal Cabernet Sauvignon
Appellation Paso Robles
Harvest Date October 2012
Acid 6.6g/L
pH 3.73
Bottling Date June 2015
Residual Sugar 6.4g/L
Alcohol % 14.6
PLATINUM + 94 Points – Somm Challenge: Int.
Denver International Wine Competition • DOUBLE GOLD - Indy International Wine Competition • GOLD + 91 Points - Central Coast Wine Competition • GOLD + 90 Points - San Francisco International Wine Competition • 92 Points - Vinous

Vintage 2012
Varietal Petit Verdot
Appellation Paso Robles
Harvest Date November 2012
Acid 6.3g/L
pH 3.69
Bottling Date July 2016
Residual Sugar 2.6g/L
Alcohol % 14.3

Vintage 2013
Varietal Merlot
Appellation Paso Robles
Harvest Date October 2013
Acid 6.3g/L
pH 3.41
Bottling Date December 2015
Residual Sugar 6.9g/L
Alcohol % 14.5
International Wine Competition • GOLD + 91pts San Diego International Wine and Spirits Challenge
 
Last edited:
From what I remember 4 g/L and below is usually considered dry. The acid levels don't seem terribly high so my guess might be to offset the higher alcohol content. I would imagine it depends on who they are marketing. I think the general public prefer a sweeter or off dry wine.
 
From what I remember 4 g/L and below is usually considered dry. The acid levels don't seem terribly high so my guess might be to offset the higher alcohol content. I would imagine it depends on who they are marketing. I think the general public prefer a sweeter or off dry wine.

I just looked this up because of an analysis I had done, and Pambianchi says dry is under 2g/L. I have heard that younger wine drinkers prefer sweeter wines and many wine makers are giving the people what they want. Some of those numbers quoted in post #41 look suspiciously high.
 
“SO2 requirements
If the winemaker decides not to follow the charts above, he or she might just as well not add any SO2 at all, as it will not make much difference”

No sugarcoating it! Lol. Interesting to see the difference of opinion from as recently as 2012 in Stickmans post compared to now regarding high ph wines in the Purdue study.
I never realized that about the molecular levels/abv correlation either Fred.

I’m doin 95mph on the freeway with the top down and music blasting. Hope I don’t regret it! [emoji51]



Nope. Not as far as I could ever tell. I keep the cab in the barrel a little higher too. I’ll be blending all back together as well as adding maybe 10% of another wine (which has a 3.2 ph) before bottling soon. Im optimistic. After blending I should have about 10 cases of the wine so I sure hope it lasts more than 5 yrs!
Time will tell (abv is about 14% iirc)
So just like you said, first gotta decide if it stays or if can benefit from an adjustment. I just personally hate adjusting later. The couple times I did everything seemed fine at the time, but whether it was my taste buds that changed or the adjustments were accentuated with age, I ended up regretting it.

View attachment 57888
would you mind sharing where these charts came from? thanks
 
Was included in the article Posted earlier in this thread. The Purdue study of high ph/so2. Post #18
Okay, I've got it thanks. Charts appear to have been generated by some software application where you could input molecular SO2 and alcohol content to come up with free SO2 at various pH's. I though maybe you had a source for the software.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top