Date: November 11, 2009 @ 8:19 AM
MLB...Not Baseball in November
This is the time of year that wineries are dealing with MLB.
OK, the Yankees won again (for the bazzilionth time). They are part of MLB. (Some in NY might argue that they ARE MLB “Major League Baseball” which is a major reason to drink beer in the fall.) But, in this blog, today…MLB…we are talking bacteria…Malo-Lactic Bacteria. (Pretty wine-geek esoteric stuff.)
Once the yeast have completed their fermentations and the pressing is over, we pay attention to the bacteria that conduct the malo-lactic fermentation. They are finicky things. (Rods and cocci…doesn’t that sound like high school biology?) You need a strong microscope to see them, or, we use a bunch of analysis to follow what they are doing.
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 Malo-lactic bacteria.
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What they do, in simple terms, is eat malic acid, produce lactic acid and make the wine a little more stable and a little less acidic. Since cool years, such as 2009, retain higher amounts of malic acid, they can have more work to do. Their work can make a pH shift but I have a strict policy of avoiding the discussion of pH in polite wine company. I
Back to MLB. We like to see them do their work as soon as possible after fermentation because delays can cause issues. MLB don’t react well to sulphur which most winemakers keep present during aging. MLB also get rather lethargic if the temperature gets too low. Look outside, winter is coming (Vines are turning yellow and Target is selling Christmas lights.)
Ideally, most of the wines will be out of malic acid soon and settling into their new home inside French oak barrels.
