> Clyde, you have made these points before. Most of what I have read about
> making wine at home has talked about the probability of striping things out
> of the wine when you fine or filter -- as if it was something to do as a
> last resort. You have really got me thinking. Do you have any suggestions
> on fining programs that might positively effect the wine in ways other than
> clearing it? In other words, specific benefits for different types of
> fining agents?
>
> Ray
Here's a good place to start Ray:
http://vinquiry.com/pdf/trialfiningsQ.pdf
http://vinquiry.com/pdf/FINING.pdf
http://vinquiry.com/pdf/coppertrialsQ.pdf
Personally, I've been able to do most of my fining in the juice stage,
and it's typically 100 bloom gelatin with a silica gel counter fining.
Juice fining is considerbly better for the wine, having much less
effect on the finished positive organoleptic qualities of the wine.
Rates on the order of ~1 gram per gallon of gelatin for free run, and
up to 4 grams per gallon on the press fraction are my typical regimen.
Those levels would wipe out a finished wine. Occasionally I will
polish fine a wine at levels as *high* as 0.05 grams per gallon, but
that's getting to be a rare occasion.
Silica gel is used in proportion to the gelatin from 0.3 mls per
gallon up to 1 ml per gallon. These are high figures for what's
recommended, but I like the results. It's relatively benign to the
wines character and mainly pulls out the gelatin. I have reason to
believe it's doing some other positive things but have nothing but
notion to support that.
Sometimes a wine, like Traminette that's been cold soaked, will end up
with some nagging bitter notes. Levels of gelatin that will remove
this seem to damage the wine, so I'll use PVPP instead, which seems to
act rather benign to the other wine qualities at recommended levels.
One other agent I'm fond of (at least it's results; it's a bear to
work with) is potassium casienate (some people use powder milk as a
substitute). It works rather well at toning down over oaked whites
without touching the fruit components.
I find doing lab trials to be one of the most challenging parts of
winemaking, but am highly convinced that it can do a wine serious
justice. Too many people on the outskirts of the industry are ready
to make accusations that commercial winemaking techniques are only
designed to get the wine to market. Though there are some wineries
that have that mindset (usually mega monsters), I think you'd find
that the majority have a much greater passion for their work and their
wines than to sacrafice quality over productivity.
Trevor made a comment earlier in this thread about not messing too
much with the wine. I very much believe in this too, and as I develop
my skills and technique for this particular winery, I get much better
at doing very specific steps to get the wine to the bottle. That's
not to the shelf mind you; I have a handful of reasons to get wine
bottled timely that may not apply to other wineries or winemakers.
But anyway, once fermentation is done, I do a racking within about 10
days, then the wine sits for a couple of months, then it gets fined,
then cold stablized, then filtered and most styles that I make are
then ready to bottle. This of course is the procedure for my "white"
wines. I rarely if ever fine my reds.
> >
> > clyde
> > Steelville, Missouri, USofA
> > http://www.PeacefulBend.com
> > http://www.vinic.com
> >