Cleaning up your wine

O.K. let's say that fermentation is complete and you now have wine (yippee!) .

What can you do next? You can drink it or clean it up.

What happens if I immediately drink it? Nothing bad. If you drink enough you will become inebriated (drunk, under the influence). In most cases if you drink it immediately you'll find that the fluid is more like a mixture. A mixture of minute particles and if you were to hold the wine up to a light source you will be able to see that your wine is cloudy and definitely have some sediment at the bottom of your wineglass.

I try to clean up my wine before drinking it apart from the tasting that occurs during and at the end of the fermentation process. I confess, I'm like a kid in a candy store. I find myself taking little tastes after crushing the grapes when I have just grape juice with skins and seeds; after the first day of fermentation; after the second day and so on until fermentation is complete and then press off the wine from the skins and seeds and taste it again. I taste it up to the time I'm putting it in the bottles.

How did I clean the wine in 2009? I first cleaned it when I pressed off the skins and seeds and that was after I believed fermentation was complete. Complete fermentation in 2009 took 14 days. Pressing removed the largest of items from the liquid. I then let the liquid (wine) set for five days in a five gallon glass container. On the fifth day I racked the wine. Racking means to siphon off the liquid from any sediment at the bottom of the container.

Immediately after racking the wine I bottled it using a coffee filter. The wine I bottled was still somewhat cloudy and I know that when I open the first bottle a year from now I will have sediment at the bottom of the bottle. And I know that I will have to take care in pouring the wine so as not to mix the wine up with the sediment. But that's O.K..

My approach regarding cleaning my wine next year will be somewhat different. I will rack the wine at least three times with at least several days between rackings. And then I want to use egg whites to further clarify my wine. Then I will rack it one last time just before bottling. I don't believe I'll be using the coffee filter system next year because it was too cumbersome and messy.

Wine cleaning methods:

Filtering

A process of "cleaning up" a wine used after fermentation (and before bottling); similar to running coffee through a filter, but arguably not always necessary to produce fine wine. The purpose of filtering is to remove sediment, grape skins, dead yeast, etc., from the wine. Filtering can range from very fine to coarse; however, it is increasingly being minimized (or avoided whenever possible) because the finer the filtering, the more flavors and character are stripped from the wine. Many wineries are using the more labor-intensive, old-fashioned practices of fining or racking to clarify wines these days. Historically, many filters before the 1980's were made from asbestos.

Fining

A traditional winemaker technique for clarifying wines by adding egg whites or bentonite (clay) to casks of wine; the eggs collect particles and sediment and slowly sink to the bottom of the cask (where the material is then removed). Considered a less intrusive process for clarifying wines than filtering.

Racking

A term for the traditional winemaker practice of moving wine from one container to another; it's essentially decanting on a grand scale by moving a wine from barrel to barrel. The purpose of racking is to rid the wine of sediment by leaving it behind in the first barrel. It requires more labor, but racking is less disturbing to the wine than filtration.

Remember to share your experiences in wine making with others. It makes this world a happier place.

Love Anthony