"John DeFiore" > wrote in message >...
> You're correct that paper chromatography is not sensitive enough to be
> sure that all the malic acid is gone. To be sure, you need an enzyme test
> from a lab or possibly the malic acid test strips from www.accuvin.com. (I
> have some of the latter, but have not tested them against known standards
> yet. ) What most people do is just confirm that malolactic is occurring and
> has come near completion, then bulk age for about a year and assume the wine
> is stable. Other options are sterile filtering and adding lysozyme before
> bottling to be safe. I use the bulk age then lysozyme approach, but it's
> expensive.
>
I wonder how accurate the various accuvin tests are. Even though you
haven't benchmarked them, do you have a feel for their accuracy?
Doing it at a lab will cost a few hundred dollars for all of my wines
(about 10) and if the answer is no, then I'd have to do it again.

> Happy Holidays,
>
Thanks, I'm off to wrap presents now... wonder if people will like
mostly complete MLF, green, slightly stinky, 3 month old wine? ;-)

....Michael