tons of sediment in my french concord!

Sep 15, 2003 4 Replies

hello all, bought french concord juice from a vineyard in the spring, let it ferment blah, blah blah for almost 4 months (the vineyard suggested 3) we bottled it around mid july. last week i opened a bottle and there was terrible chunks of sediment, sludge, slime or something in the bottle! yikes!!! i opened all the bottles up and will let them sit and re-rack until i think it is gone but i am sure it wasnt like that when we bottled, what happened?


I agree, Greg, but "chunks of sediment, sludge, slime or something" doesn't sound like the normal sediment a wine will throw whether in bulk or in bottle. If the description is accurate, he has a contamination problem.

Since we are talking concord grapes, they may be high in pectin. Perhaps he is making a combo wine-grape jelly. Tim

today i racked that wine. the "sediment" at the bottom was crystalized...like it was sugar...what would cause this?

That would be tartrates. This can be avoided in the future by cold stabilization, as someone else has already mentioned.

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