ClearingWine

CLEARING YOUR WINE

Given time, most wines should clear without difficulty without adding anything. Certainly the less
invasive you are the better. Wine is a complex liquid and will react to how it is treated. Your
choices as a home vintner for effecting a clear, finished wine are:

use nothing
use clearing agents - finings
filter

Some basics to consider in clearing wines.

Fermentation must be complete. If not, gas from yeast activity will continue rising and
carrying particles upward.
Rack the wine, (racking specifically means siphoning wine off the sediment). Several good
things happen in racking. Less sediment remains to be stirred up.Reduced chance of
autolytic activity in the yeast bed (yeast cells breaking down and releasing unwanted flavours
or aromas). Also the mechanical act of racking can break down electrostatic charges which
may be keeping some particles suspended. If you are leaving your wine for a long time in
bulk, consider racking every month or two and adding small amounts of sulphite at each
racking.
Wine vessel must remain at rest. Obviously, moving the wine will delay settling. However, an
occasional shake will loosen sediment clinging to the sides of the vessel and allow it to settle
further to the bottom.
Keep wine at a constant temperature, preferably cool. Wine may need to be warm to ferment,
but will clear better if cool. Changes in temperature create currents and pressure changes in
the wine, swirling or lifting material up from the lees.
Rack again.

Note - If using popular 23 litre glass carboys, when it comes to clearing, the smooth sided
ones made in Mexico are superior to the grid sided Italian ones.

When filtering is being considered, you may choose not to use any finings. You must, however,
still follow the basics of racking and clearing the wine. Filtration will not go well if the wine is "dirty".
Most filtration systems use paper fibre, one-time use, filter pads. These systems use an electric
pump, gravity, positive pressure, or negative pressure to pass the wine through the disposable
pads. Many wine makers feel strongly that wines should not be filtered, but given time and
managed in order to clear without a process which may remove some of the character of the wine.

Note - see our advice on filtering at BuonVinoFilter.