Seeking advice on my Williams Merlot and Pino Noir

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DoctorCAD

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Both fermented exactly as they were supposed to. Both dropped into the mid .990's. Both sat on toasted oak. The Pino sat for 7 months and the Merlot sat 9 months. Both had a tiny bit of lees at bottling. No sorbate added. I didn't test the Pino, but the Merlot tested 3.85+/- pH and about 10 ppm free SO2. I added 2 crushed campden tabs to bring it up to near 50 for bottling. Nothing special, both worked just as I expected.

Here's the issue. Both taste "sweet" to my wife, and I get a sweet taste at first and it goes away quickly. I seem to remember something about pH and something else giving a false sweet taste. Anyone ever heard of this?

Other than that, the Merlot is fantastic...one of my best wines and it is just in the bottle. I can't wait for it to get over bottle shock
 
ABV below 40% tastes sweet, not hot as some think. At or above 40% is when it starts tasting hot.

If the acid level is low and the ABV is higher, the wine will have a perception of sweetness becasue the wine is very much out of balance. I wouldn't think a Merlot or Pinot would have a high ABV, but with that low of a TA, it very well could be you are tasting the alcohol without the balancing of the acid.

One of the reasons for balance in a wine is to raise the acid level enough to balance out the alcohol.

One can test this by mixing some tartaric acid in some water. Just enough acid that it tastes slightly unpleasantly acidic. Take a taste of this solution, swirl it around your mouth to soak all your taste buds, then spit it out. Immediately take a taste of any dry wine.

The acid in the solution will have overwhelmed your tasting ability of the acid in the wine, so when you taste it, it will be as though the TA of the wine is zero.

The result should be the wine will taste sweet from the alcohol.

I believe this is similar to what you are experiencing with your wine.
 
Toasted oak will many times add a characteristic of sweetness.
 
I have this issue with a World Vineyard Sangiovese (made using the method developed by joeswines). Very sweet tasting. I did add about 3 oz heavy toast American chips in aging so maybe that is where the sweetness is coming from. And to robie's comment about acid, I had a taste of the Sangiovese right after a Kenridge LE Shiraz/Mataro and the sweet taste was gone. So I learned something today. Thanks for the lesson.
 

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