I think that from a commercial standpoint filtration to assure to a
high degree that your wine will be biologically stable is becoming nearly an
industry standard. Of course there are the "all natural" methods which I
recognize, but they are the exception for now.
I have attended a seminar on filtration in which the same wine was
sampled as filtered and non filtered. Clarity in this case was not
disernable to me, and I certainly could not tell which was which although in
my mind I did perceive the wines to taste slightly different. This view
seemed to be the general consensus of those in attendance with obvious
differing opinions. Some guessed which was filtered and which non, and as
Lum stated earlier- guessing was about the best that could be done. So for
me IF I was a COMMERCIAL winemaker, I would sterile filter all of my white
wines both dry and semi-sweet, and might consider the same treatment for my
reds although I am not convinced on them. For the home winemaker- I dont
think it is necessary, but at times I find it desireable mainly to give my
wine a "polished" look, and to avoid the use of Sorbate which I am not a big
fan of taste wise. On the subject of Sorbate I will add that in lesser
amounts I cant detect it, and I imagine most people cant either, so that is
a debateable issue as well. Just my opinion based on what I have experienced
and have learned. HTH
John Dixon
"JEP" > wrote in message
om...
> "Lum" > wrote in message
>...
> >
> > I agree that an experiment such as this can't address what will happen
to
> > filtered wine in 20 years. But, it seems to me that Roberta's
experiment
> > does prove that a tight filtration did not significantly change the near
> > term characteristics of _those_ particular wines.
>
> I agree.
>
> > Perhaps the most
> > important aspect is that an experiment was done.
>
> I agree 100%.
>
> > Measurements were made,
> > data was collected and analyzed and the results presented. That's a lot
> > different than speculation.
>
> And we need a lot more of this. Sorry, I may have come off too strong
> before.
>
> It's just that sometimes we (as a society) try to read too much into
> some of these studies. This includes current medical research.
> Sometimes we want the data to prove something that the experiment just
> didn't address.
>
> Unfortunately, a lot of the experiments we really need, take 5, 10, 20
> years to conduct. If the experiment isn't set up right to begin with,
> a lot of time can be wasted.
>
> >
> > Regards,
>
> My Regards also,
>
> Andy