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WINEMAKING tion leads to stronger fresh fruit expression in red wines, mainly because stabilization by way of sulfur happens earlier in the pro- cess. And although the production of diacetyl is a complicated business, finishing the malo early allows for killing off the bugs before they move on to consuming citric acid, one diacetyl path- way. If you want a non-buttery but malolactic Chardonnay, co- ferment and hit it with sulfur as soon as the malo completes; if you want a butter bomb, stretch the malolactic fermentation out as long as possible. "There's a lot of resistance, a lot of folks out there who have been making wine for 20 years and have their recipe." —Russ Robbins, AEB USA The Pinot exception. You knew there would have to be some weird consideration just for Pinot Noir, didn't you? Co-fermen- tation has been happily practiced on Pinot, but some experience suggests that the period between the end of the alcoholic and ma- lolactic fermentations is critical for color stabilization in Pinot, and so the window you may want to close for most wines might need to stay open a bit longer for Pinot. Figures. The power of habit So if all the suppliers think co-fermentation is a swell idea, is it taking the industry by storm? Lallemand's Gersten-Briand says GrapeParts4Less.com Paying Too Much For Picking Rods? Now You Have A Low Cost Source! GrapeParts4Less.com supplies quality American made picking rods, closures, and parts for all major grape harvester brands. Call 559-277-7382 or visit our website. Mastercard or VISA accepted. Se habla Espaňol. GrapeParts4Less.com Your Low Cost Source For Quality Harvester Parts 56 WINES & VINES OCTOBER 2012 GP4L_W&V_April_2012.indd 1 2/27/12 11:59 AM that it's "catching on in California," largely because of the poten- tial sensory gains. "Winemakers with certain stylistic goals adopt it," says Enartis Vinquiry's Santos, "and some winemakers who have had system- atic trouble with MLs. For the rest, if nothing's broke they're not likely to change." Though he thinks the practice eventually will become wide- spread because of the performance gains, for the moment Laffort's Salamone says, "It's not catching on exceptionally fast, it's not a wave, just a trickle." Although they are happy to explain it to the curious, none of the suppliers I talked to make a big deal out of co-fermentation. "I don't even try to talk folks out of (sequential fermentation)," says AEB's Robbins. "There's a lot of resistance, a lot of folks out there who have been making wine for 20 years and have their recipe." Gusmer's Petersen says he hasn't found much resistance, "just because I haven't pushed it that hard." Van de Water, who was an early advocate of the technique de- cades ago, remains wary today, because of the industry's "addic- tion" to high-alcohol wines. If winemaking was simple, we'd all be out of jobs. But while we're still employed, co-fermentation seems to have more advan- tages than practitioners, and certainly seems worth a try. Tim Patterson is the author of "Home Winemaking for Dummies." He writes about wine and makes his own in Berkeley, Calif. Years of experi- ence as a journalist, combined with a contrarian streak, make him inter- ested in getting to the bottom of wine stories, casting a critical eye on conventional wisdom in the process.