second fermentation

[Thomas]

That's ok Catch, I missed the part about "what are the benefits."

In my always humble opinion, I think malolactic fermentation is best confined to red wine and some sparkling wines. In red wines, if done judiciously, the ml process softens for a nice rounded mouthfeel, and it would do the same for Chardonnay if winemakers could control themselves.

Many producers ml Chardonnay to milk and then, to make matters worse, they oak it too literal death.

Malolactic fermentation is the process of changing naturally-occurring (in small amounts) malic acid in wine into lactic acid--hence the milk reference. Some of those beat up Chardonnays taste like bad cheese to me, and smell even worse.