What We Need:

VA Removal is our biggest leap forward in terms of technology and elimination of collateral damage to the wine.  Our advanced processing requires:

• a current VA analysis
• less than 100 NTU*
• 60 degrees fahrenheit or greater

*processing dirty wine for stuck ferments is possible, but we must know beforehand in order to be prepared

VOLATILE ACIDITY

Volatile acidity (VA) is mostly acetic acid, but also some minor "volatile" acids, such as valeric, isovaleric, propionic, butyric, and others. Excessive VA is one of the most common flaws with wine. Fortunately, it can be removed gently and without collateral damage to the wine. Our process operates at very minimal pressures and the only effect on the wine is the improvement in flavor from balance of VA.  The Mavrik advantage includes:

• The lowest pressures in the industry--50 to 80% less than the alternatives
• No significant pH shift
• Very high removal of volatiles means very low processing requirements
• Very efficient processing means big savings for you

DILEMMA: BEAT IT UP, OR STRIP IT OUT

Up until we created our process, you have had two choices in VA reduction:  Very high pressure or big pH shift.

When it comes to removal, it is difficult to separate acetic acid from the desirable wine acids such as tartaric, malic, lactic, etc.  Remove one, remove the rest.

One option was to minimize the passage of tartaric acid into the permeate by using the very high pressures of reverse osmosis. Problem is, these high pressures--about 750 to 1200 psi--beat up, and heat up, the wine.  The point is to limit the passage of tartaric, malic, lactic and the other non-volatile wine acids into the permeate.  Unfortunately, this also limits the passage of acetic acid into the permeate.

The result is that the high pressure solution has to process the wine 3-4 times as much to get the same reduction in VA--at those pressures the whole time.  

The other option was to use slightly lower pressures associated with nanofiltration, but also to accept the loss of large amounts of tartaric, malic, lactic and the other non-volatile wine acids. This limits the amount of processing in comparison to reverse osmosis, but can result in a considerable shift upward of pH and excessive loss of TA.  Additions of tartaric acid afterwards are expensive, and can leave a wine with harsh acidity.

Evolution of Our Process

We won't offer a service until we can make an improvement and lower the cost.  VA reduction is no exception.  Simple separation by membrane followed by adsorption has been practiced for years and is effective, but the question is, how to optimize it and avoid having to choose high pressures or excessive acid loss?We took it as a given that we had to perform the separation at even lower pressures than Nanofiltration.  But there are dozens of membranes available commercially for this separation. And they are not created equal. We conducted extensive R&D to test many of these. Ultimately, however, we developed our own membrane that operates at very low pressures and extremely high passage of VA into the permeate.

This is how we arrived at our low pressure process that processes the wine significantly less than other competing processes, thereby minimizing TA loss and pH shift.  And, as usual, we pass the savings on to you.