From: Jeff Sully (Jsully@drycreekvineyard.com)
Date: 04/06/00-09:37:54 AM Z
Dear list
As a winemaker/lurker, I'll be mercifully brief. If you'd like to try some
swill as an emergency stop bath, most California north coast wines have a pH
of 3.3 to 3.6. Total acidity runs from about .6 - .75 gm/100ml.
Predominant acids are tartaric and malic at harvest. Current practice is to
reduce the malic into lactic acid. Wines from more northern latitudes
(northern Europe) tend to have slightly higher acid levels and relatively
lower pH's. Now, about that Petit Chablis...
Jeff
http://www.drycreekvineyard.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Kiss [mailto:bobkiss@caribsurf.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2000 5:50 PM
To: ALT PHO PROC.
Subject: STOP THE WINE!
DEAR LIST,
Please forgive me if I am in err but I didn't know that healthy wine
(not beyond its time) had a pH low enough to use as stop bath, whether red
or white. If you open the bottle and leave it at room temperature long
enough you will get "wine vinegar" which is partly composed of acetic
acid...the active ingredient of stop bath. As we are enthusiastic enough
to make our own FO and even Potassium Metaborate, why not blow a minimum of
$40 turning a lovely Petit Chablis into stop bath? O.K., I exaggerate, but
we certainly can do without the vast majority of mongoose urine marketed as
"Chardonnay" which are too acid to start with...as a matter of fact you
might be doing the wine drinkers of the world a favor by using up the
current supply of Chardonnay's as raw material for stop baths.
Now, I won't argue that many things that are marketed under the name
"wine" may, indeed, taste more like vinegar but I am not certain that
decent wine would stop development as much as it might stop your ability to
concentrate on development.
Now you know why Orson Wells used to say, " We serve no wine before it's
time..." (and then only three weeks after going into the barrels),
"IT'S TIME!!!"
CHEERS!
BOB KISS
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