On Sun, 20 Mar 2011 12:49:05 -0400, James Silverton
> wrote:

>On 3/20/2011 12:39 PM, Dave Smith wrote:
>> On 20/03/2011 12:14 PM, Paul Arthur wrote:
>>
>>>>> Never even heard of vintage port, have you?
>>>>
>>>> Actually there is vintage port and it can be quite pricy,
>>>
>>> Um, duh. That was his point. That pricy vintage port often requires
>>> decanting due to sediment, which rather argues against the claim that
>>> wines worth more than $2/liter don't need decanting.
>>
>> It was Sheldon. Don't expect it to make sense.
>>
>> A few years ago my wife bought me a bottle of vintage port. It was
>> wonderful stuff. I confess to being naive about vintage port. I had no
>> idea there would be so much dregs in the bottom of the bottle. I would
>> estimate that 10-15% of the volume of the bottle was dregs. Rude surprise.
>>
>>
>Is any harm done by filtering out the dregs?

Get it through your head that there are no dregs in commercially
bottled wines, they've already been filtered when bottled... what you
see at the bottom of the bottle are crystals/sufites, you cannot
filter that out because if disturbed it immediately go back into
solution. I used to make my own wine, still had no dregs because I
siphoned it out of the carboys from above the dregs, it didn't need
filtering except for the last bit at the bottom and I used that for
cooking... the dregs are nothing more than small bits of fruit, can't
hurt anything. Anyone who brews coffee/tea there are dregs, no one
filters those bits out, just don't pour the last dregs into your cup.