WTN: Bürklin-Wolf 2010 - and a Q on de-acidification

[David M. Bueker]

What’s wrong with a little “pleasant” “greenish apple” or “granny-smith” note found in a white wine?

Salute

Nothing wrong with that. Some of the '96s go waaaaay too far though.

25% Malic high? I disagree in the case of Riesling and some other grapes (Pinot Blanc, Silvaner, Scheurebe, Muskateller.)

I didn't say high, I said significant (that's not pedantry, I use those words distinctively).

[Low malic in] vintages (2001, 2002, 2003, 2008, 2010), but the times when there was high malic (i.e. 1996) it was easily tasteable. Just going off memory from 2002 (the vintage I tasted in Germany), I specifically recall one Mosel producer who had no more than 1.5 g/l of malic for any of his wines ( I saw the data sheets for every wine tasted that day). The rest was tartaric.

Normally you see roughly a 50/50 split between Malic and Tartaric acids in Germany. In 2010 it was 75% Malic, 25% Tartaric, in 2011 it was 25% Malic, 75% tartaric.... I think that only 4 or 5 didn’t deacidify some wines, in some way in 2010. If they didn’t, we were seeing dry Spätlese at 12 or 13g/l.

You guys appear in disagreement.

I believe that David was talking about analysis of finished wines, while I am talking about grape must.

Thanks for your input, Bill.

David says 2010 was a low malic vintage (for finished wine), and you say it was 75% malic (for must) with final TA's of 12 or 13 g/l (as tartaric) for wines not de-acidified. I would not call those statements in agreement (and I am accouting for the fact that they are for wine and must, respectively) - unless you are saying winemakers actually deacidified massive quantities of malic in 2010(?!).

Hi,
No numbers to add to this interesting discussion, but I could just add that when Theresa Breuer was in Stockholm this spring, she told us that 2010 was particular because of the unusually high content of malic acidity.

Cheers,
Anders