I am not sure why Jeff Cox said that. The reaction of calcium
carbonate in wine is fairly simple and complete. The H ions (the
actual active part of that acid) react with the carbonate ions to form
CO2 gas and water. The Calcium ions will combine with tartaric acid
and precipitate out. there should be no place for an off flavor to
occure there.

Unless in his experience he drops out tto much of the tartaric acid,
leaving a malic dominated wine, which would taste terrible. The
correct thing to do would be to TLC the wine to find out the relative
proportions of each acid. If you have a lot of malic acid, calcium
carbonate would be unadvisable. It you have mostly tartaric acid,
calcium carbonate (or potassium carbonate) would work fine for you.

You are right, your sulfite level is too high for MLF. I would not
sweeten, that really is out of style for that wine.

If worse comes to worse, get another batch of wine going, do not
sulfite it (so you can have it undergo MLF if needed) and then blend
the two after any acid adjustment you can do to each. the second batch
you would want to knock out as much of the acid as possible so I would
use Lalvin 71B-1122 in addition to MLF and cold stabilization.


Franco wrote:
> Well, after replacing my overly concentrated solution of sodium
> hydroxide from my friends at Carlson, I measured my wine
> (Cabernet/Merlot) with a standardized solution and I got 0.87%. The
> wine tasted harsh, but without having any tasting experience, I didn't
> know what the cause was. The wine comes from a kit, and it had a good
> amount of SO2 to start with, so I don't think that I could induce
> malolactic fermentation. I recently measured SO2 with a titret and I
> got 60 ppm. Also, I already cold stabilized it and got some potasium
> bitartrate to precipitate. I guess that one of my options is to use
> some base (calcium carbonate?) to neutralize acid, but if I recall
> correctly, Cox in his book "From vines to wines" says that calcium
> carbonate makes the wine "downright undrinkable". Should I also try to
> add some sugar to balance the acid? If so, how much sugar should I add?
> I guess the least invasive method would be to blend it with some other
> wine with low acidity, but I just don't have six gallons of anything
> else. This is my first batch. What are your suggestions? Thanks in
> advance.
>
> Franco