Reducing citric acid

[Noontime]

My wife and I make a lemon/lime based mojito wine, and I'm thinking of fooling around with the recipe. I'd like to try reducing the acidity so I don't have to add as much sugar when back sweetening. I'd like to reduce the citric since it's most abundant and maybe lessen yeast converting citric into acetic acid. I haven't been able to find any information on reducing citric acid in wines, and I'm wondering if calcium carbonate is effective. Or is that mostly effective on tartaric acid and something else should be used for citric? Thanks for any input!

 

[BernardSmith]

Not a chemist, David, but from what I recall from my (Scottish) high school chemistry any base (alkali) when added to any acid will tend to neutralize the acidity (and so increase the pH). So while in principle calcium chloride because being a base WILL tend to neutralize the acids in your wine the calcium might precipitate out and you might find that that creates all kinds of issues both in terms of taste and in terms of clarity. You might want to consider using potassium chloride as that would then be less obtrusive in the wine AND the K could act as a useful element for the yeast. In any event, I think there is a limit to how much base you can add without the base becoming a perceptible taste.