What Are Wine Making Filters?
Making wine is an age-old tradition that has been in some families for generations. The techniques and tricks of the trade wind up being family secrets while other parts of the wine making process usually end up becoming a standard part. Wine making filters are something used by winemakers mostly for the good of the public and to make their wine more appealing to the consumer. As economies moved from being rural self-contained communities to relying on goods sold all over the world it became obvious that products needed to have as much of a universal appeal as possible. Part of that universal appeal is a look that makes the customer want to buy your product. Have you ever wondered how wine becomes so sparkling and clear? It isn’t nature, it is wine making filters.
When wine has completely done going through the entire process of being crushed into a juice and then fermented for a period of time the resulting liquid is usually cloudy and flat. The taste is certainly there but the look is not what people expect from a wine and in the early days of the wine trade people made it clear they preferred a clearer liquid. The bubbles in wine and champagne are either carbonation or dust particles in the liquid. Neither is harmful at all and actually many people expect their wine or their champagne to have bubbles. Less people would prefer bubbles in their champagne if they knew the bubbles were micro particles of dust and that is probably why the champagne makers keep that a secret. But wine making filters were introduced to make the wine a clear and more appealing liquid. Wine making filters work under the same basic concept as any other filter and provide almost the same service.
How Are They Used?
Wine making filters come in a variety of styles and types and have been developed through the years, many in response to the one thing that wine making filters can do to a wine that is a bad thing. While filtering can remove the cloudy look to the wine, and any other imperfections, it can also remove elements of the taste of the wine and that is where winemakers have to be careful. Some elements of wine making filters help to keep the wine fresh longer by removing the excess yeast and sugar that may result from making wine. But other wine making filters can take away the elements that add flavor to the wine and if those elements are removed you have a flat and lifeless liquid.
Wine making is considered an art by many people and rightfully so. To know how to filter and what to do to prevent filters from killing your wine takes time, patience, practice, and skill. Many filtering techniques are passed down through the generations and then advances in equipment allow the newer generations to make their own changes. Some wine makers prefer to use methods that are hundreds of years old because “if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it”.