chaptalize
Oct. 5th, 2011 07:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordchaptalize (SHAP-tuh-leyez) - v., to add sugar (to a fermenting wine) to increase its alcohol content.
This is usually done if the grapes are thought to lack enough natural sugars for the desired alcohol content -- rather than to make it sweeter. Some technical dictionaries describe this as "adjusting or correcting the percentages of free acid and sugar in the must ," and sometimes include neutralizing the acid in the process, as was originally done by Jean-Antoine-Claude Chaptal, the late 18th-early 19th century French chemist who developed it (he added powdered marble to neutralize the acid) but is better known for naming nitrogen.
---L.
This is usually done if the grapes are thought to lack enough natural sugars for the desired alcohol content -- rather than to make it sweeter. Some technical dictionaries describe this as "adjusting or correcting the percentages of free acid and sugar in the must ," and sometimes include neutralizing the acid in the process, as was originally done by Jean-Antoine-Claude Chaptal, the late 18th-early 19th century French chemist who developed it (he added powdered marble to neutralize the acid) but is better known for naming nitrogen.
---L.
