10/03/06 pH - Do we really care?

Welcome to vine to Wine this is your host Linda Moran. Why do so many winemakers mention wine pH? Do they think we as everyday consumers know what they are talking about? I for one don't understand the conversation about wine pH so I read up and today I will share what I found out. I spent time trying to understand pH and what it did in wine and I found out that pH  that's a lower case p and un uppercase H, is how the winemaker measures the acidity or alkalinity of a wine. It measures the hydrogen ion, that's why the H is capitalized, and its activity. It is a logarithm in which the example given was that a wine with a pH of three is ten times more acidic than one with a value of four. Now if water has a pH of 7.0 feature that most wine is between 3.20 and 3.70. Now if that isn't complicated enough for you pH is influenced by everything from the condition of the grapes at harvest, the amount of potassium in the grapes, the soil, the vine canopy, the winemaking process the presence of oxygen during winemaking and so much more. Truly the grower and the winemakers who master the control of this aspect of a wine and the dance it takes to balance it. Maybe it is because it is so complicated some winemakers mention it to let us to know that they have it all under control. I say let's just smile and nod appreciatively. Remember to send your wine questions to Linda at vine to wine dot net and thank you for listening to today's Vine to Wine.