Malvasia - Day 7- adding ML Culture and Yeast food

Day 7: Well the weather has been hot and the nighttime temperatures not that cool, so the fermentation has gone faster than expected.

During the end of fermentation a yeast food is added to make sure that the fermentation will finish. Also I add ML {Malo-Lactic} culture to the wine at this point.

ML culture will facilitate a ML fermentation where Malo acid is converted to Lactic acid. An ML fermentation will soften a wine, but adds some characteristics that some people do not want ...

See this link for more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malolactic_fermentation

For me, I want all my wines to go through a ML fermentation if possible, since the wine will be more stable once bottled. The worst case is for the wine to go through an ML fermentation after it is bottled! So I try to force an ML fermentation as early as possible.

One negative side affect of an ML fermentation is the lowering of the crispness of the acid taste. If this is an issue for the wine, I will add acid {tartaric acid} prior to bottling to bring back the crispness... it all depends on what I'm trying to do with the particular wine.

OK the fun part... I get my first taste of the Malvasia! After all, that's the reason the make wine, the drinking!

I try to taste each wine at every step along the way, to build my knowledge of the wine over time and help plan out things I may need to do with the wine in the future.