Several comments....
I don't know why your filtering experience was "a disaster," but usually when someone says that they tried to filter cloudy wine, which plugs filter pads REAL fast and leads to...you guessed it...a disaster. Alternatively, they may have simply assempled or used the filter wrong. All filters come with instructions that are best not ignored.
Sediment in wine is caused by several things, but the two most common are (1) wine being bottled too soon, before it has dropped all of it's suspended lees and yeast, and (2) an old, highly tannic wine that has aged well and the tannins have linked together into long molecular chains that precipitate out. The first of these is the fault of the winemaker who was too impatient and did not allow the wine to finish properly. The second is not a fault at all, but rather a characteristic of an older, highly tannic wine (such as cabernet sauvignon or heavy port). The first can be prevented by allowing the wine to finish properly over a period of months. The second is dealt with by decanting the wine, something mankind has been doing for centuries.
Someone mentioned coffee filters. A hazy wine may not plug up coffee filters, but a cloudy wine will and will do so very fast. So will a wine with sediment if not handled correctly. If poured slowly and steadily through a coffee filter in a funnel, the sediment will all be in the final two or three tablespoons of wine and the filter will not clog up. But, you could just as easily decant the wine (the same pouring technique is used) and eliminate the filter altogether.
Someone mentioned muslin and added parenthetically that it is cheesecloth. It is not, but this is not the point I wanted to make. Muslin has many uses in winemaking. Muslin bags were used before nylon was invented for straining fruit (jelly bags) and holding raw ingredients (grapes, fruit, berries) in the press to prevent pulp from oozing out into the juice. It is the material of choice for covering primary fermentation vessels the first 72 hours of fermentation, allowing the free intake of oxygen for the yeast while keeping out most dust particles and insects. Always sanitize muslin before using it in winemaking (soak 2 minutes in 5% potassium metabisulfite solution and wring to just damp, or boil 5 minutes, remove to a clean bowl to cool and then wring to just damp).
Rather than buying gadgets to correct problems with a wine (such as sediment from bottling too early), why not simply prevent the problem in the first place? A wine that has been racked several times while clearing, at intervals of 30-45 days, will rarely throw sediment in the bottle.
This post may sound critical. It was not meant to be. For all I know the wine you are speaking of could be gifts from friends or relatives and throwing sediment through no fault of you or your hubby. But understanding the problem will allow you to try to gently steer the winemaker into a slower, more disciplined pace.
Only very old wines need have sediment. All others should be brilliantly clear and sediment-free.
Jack Keller, The Winemaking Home Page
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