I just bottled on the Limited Edition Cellar Craft wines that give you
16L of juice/concentrate and a pack that has all the skins and seeds
and stems in the kit. It is a red Malec/Merlot kit.

I had some friends making the wine with me and we were tasting it
throught the process. After tasting it when after finings we found it
to be very rich and full bodied. After filtering and bottling, we
found that it was no longer like that. It seems to have lost some of
it's body and richness after filtering.

Would it have been better to have not filtered? Any suggestions would
be appreciated.

Thanks,

Rob

I suspect that a lot of the bouquet and some of the body will come back
after a month in bottle. It is probably still experiencing bottle shock. I
don't filter my wine but I would not think that it would cause the drastic
effect you are describing. But if you fined it, why would you filter it?
It should have cleared with the fining and the filtering could then remove
nothing but things that should have been left in.

Ray

"Rob M" > wrote in message
om...
> I just bottled on the Limited Edition Cellar Craft wines that give you
> 16L of juice/concentrate and a pack that has all the skins and seeds
> and stems in the kit. It is a red Malec/Merlot kit.
>
> I had some friends making the wine with me and we were tasting it
> throught the process. After tasting it when after finings we found it
> to be very rich and full bodied. After filtering and bottling, we
> found that it was no longer like that. It seems to have lost some of
> it's body and richness after filtering.
>
> Would it have been better to have not filtered? Any suggestions would
> be appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Rob

"Rob M" > wrote in message
om...
> I just bottled on the Limited Edition Cellar Craft wines that give you
> 16L of juice/concentrate and a pack that has all the skins and seeds
> and stems in the kit. It is a red Malec/Merlot kit.
>
> I had some friends making the wine with me and we were tasting it
> throught the process. After tasting it when after finings we found it
> to be very rich and full bodied. After filtering and bottling, we
> found that it was no longer like that. It seems to have lost some of
> it's body and richness after filtering.
>
> Would it have been better to have not filtered? Any suggestions would
> be appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Rob

Hi Rob,

Wine is oxidized during bottling. Oxidation makes wine taste flat and
this condition is called "bottle sickness." Bottle sickness is temporary,
and the wine will recover in a few weeks if the proper amount of sulfur
dioxide was used before bottling.

In general, filtration will not significantly change a wines character. Of
course, wine can also be oxidized by a faulty filtration procedure, and
badly filtered wine will exhibit bottle sickness.

lum

Ray wrote:

> I suspect that a lot of the bouquet and some of the body will come back
> after a month in bottle. It is probably still experiencing bottle shock.
> I don't filter my wine but I would not think that it would cause the
> drastic
> effect you are describing. But if you fined it, why would you filter it?
> It should have cleared with the fining and the filtering could then remove
> nothing but things that should have been left in.
>
> Ray

I believe filtering is sometimes done to remove or diminish the chances of
malo lactic or regular refermention in cases where possibly all the sugar
has not been fermented out - or to sweeten a wine and not add sorbate. If
fine filtering can eliminate yeast cells, what else can it eliminate?
Don't know, just asking. I have tasted red wine that was filtered and to
me, it did have a negative impact but could just be my imagination.


>
> "Rob M" > wrote in m1.075essage
> om...
>> I just bottled on the Limited Edition Cellar Craft wines that give you
>> 16L of juice/concentrate and a pack that has all the skins and seeds
>> and stems in the kit. It is a red Malec/Merlot kit.
>>
>> I had some friends making the wine with me and we were tasting it
>> throught the process. After tasting it when after finings we found it
>> to be very rich and full bodied. After filtering and bottling, we
>> found that it was no longer like that. It seems to have lost some of
>> it's body and richness after filtering.
>>
>> Would it have been better to have not filtered? Any suggestions would
>> be appreciated.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Rob

"Rob M" > wrote in message
om...
> I just bottled on the Limited Edition Cellar Craft wines that give you
> 16L of juice/concentrate and a pack that has all the skins and seeds
> and stems in the kit. It is a red Malec/Merlot kit.
>
> I had some friends making the wine with me and we were tasting it
> throught the process. After tasting it when after finings we found it
> to be very rich and full bodied. After filtering and bottling, we
> found that it was no longer like that. It seems to have lost some of
> it's body and richness after filtering.
>
> Would it have been better to have not filtered?

If the wine is biologically stable and clear there isn't any good reason to
filter it.

I used to routinely filter all my wines, but over the years I've come to
realize that it's better not to if you can avoid it. The wine suffers from
the extra handling, if nothing else. Of course if you have residual sugar,
cloudy wine or incomplete ML it's risky to _not_ filter.

Tom S

(Rob M) wrote in message . com>...

> After tasting it when after finings we found it
> to be very rich and full bodied. After filtering and bottling, we
> found that it was no longer like that.
---snip

Rob, did you fine/filter because the wine was not clear after you
tasted it or just because this was just another step in you
"winemakingprocess"?

I have never had to filter any red, kit or fresh. Sometimes less is
more,

SG Brix