I have been reading about and old method of sterilizing that seems to
be being revisited. The wine is heated to 54 C +/-0.2 C and bottled,
cased and stored with no pre cooling. The temperature is very low but
the long lag time in cooling is used for sterilization. It's in Bird's
book- Winery Technology. His feeling is that the temperature control
must be tight and that it's useful for generic wines in that it can
have a premature aging effect on the wine, possibly making it drinkable
sooner. He is a chemist and master of wine so it's not exactly a 'left
field' theory.

Joe

Joe