Sediment in bottled wine

You don't say at what stage you bottled or how long you aged b4 bottling ( if at all) If the sediment in the bottle is only minimal then it will cause you no problems. All it will mean is that you will need to take care when pouring from the bottle. You either decant into another vessel -- and that lets you pour it into glasses without any worries. OR You can pour from the bottle into glasses-- but you need to keep pouring -- and at 6 glasses to the bottle -- you have the sixth glass! If you stop pouring, especially once you are more than 1/2 way down the bottle, then you will disturb the sediment in the bottom of the bottle. There's a great deal of unnecessary worry about sediment -- when I first started drinking wine some 55 years ago or so ( it was probably b4 that) -- most quality red wines ( I'm a claret man -- man and boy) had a sediment in bottle! Take it one stage further and consider vintage Port! I certainly don't believe in filtering for cosmetic reasons -- I have an inbred ( but unsubstantiated by taste tests etc) belief that wine should be tampered with to a minimum and that filtering, to whatever micron level all the filterers use, will remove substances inherent in the properties of the wine. I am not saying that filtering is wrong -- it is just that the end result is different. But isn't every end result different. I do find that "fruit wines" -- especially the red ones -- do take much longer to achieved that "je ne sais quoi" at least 2 years from initial fermentation, through bulk aging and bottling. But also that the wait is worth while!

If it is a light dusting, then I don't worry about it. If it more than a light dusting, say 1/4 inch of sediment, then my feeling is that you probably either didn't rack enough while you were bulk aging and/or maybe bottled to early. You'd be surprised how much sediment can drop out of a wine and how long it can take. What the other poster said is good advice; it all depends on your expectations. If you could let us know how many times you racked before bottling, and how old your wine was when you bottled it, that would help us to give better advice. I don't filter my wines, and at the most I get a light dusting in the bottle, or nothing at all. Darlene

Thanks for the advice given. I bulk aged about 11 months with I believ

4 rackings. The wine looked very clear prior to bottling but I kno that isn't a good indication.

I do w> If it is a light dusting, then I don't worry about it. If it more tha > a

-- camelot

I agree.

I would say the same is still true, with the modifier of "properly aged" added to your quality red wine.

Andy

Well, it certainly sounds like you racked and let your wine age enough. I usually rack 3-4 times before I bottle at 7 months, and at the most I get a dusting of sediment or nothing at all. Then again, it could be that black currant wine may just require more rackings or more aging. Cold stabilizing might be a good thing to try. But you might just try to put the wine in a cooler spot - I bulk age in my basement which is usually 10 degrees+ cooler than the rest of my house. I have also put my carboys in my garage in the fall for a cold stabilizing, but I always have to watch for cold spells because I live in Wisconsin. Good-luck. Darlene

The bitartrates that produce the majority of sediments in wine are very slow forming precipitates. A number of factors including temperature, total acid and pH can affect how slow the formation is. Long ageing in carboys/barrels and cold stabilization ensures that most of the precipitate will form there and be left behind at bottling. Filtering would remove those crystals existing at the time, but have no effect on those forming later.

Cheers Les

Contrary to other posts, I don't think cold stabilizing would help in this case. We're talking blackcurrant wine here not a grape wine. The major acid in blackcurrant is citric and so will not drop out as tartaric does during cold stabilization.

Other than that, your procedure looks fine, the only question I'd have is how long you left between the last racking and bottling? I'd leave at least 2 months to see that no further sediment is formed after the last racking.

Also, try the "laser light" test for clarity before bottling to makes sure the wine is really clear.

Pp