I’m in the non-paper camp, and frankly I rarely filter other than the moderately fine grating in my decanting funnel. But this is based on absolutely no real empiric evidence at all. Maybe we should all take a quick breather, forget about coffee, and do what is a pretty simple experiment (blinding it would be a good idea), and pour a bunch of samples with paper and non paper filters, plus no filter, and see what differences you can discern. you can do it with wine with no sediment, and wine with sediment. We could have all done this a week ago and had a very productive discussion.
Andy’s experiment was interesting, but I don’t think people should consider it to be definitive as far as using coffee filters vs cheesecloth or something else to filter wine. The two questions about any filtration method are whether it does a good job of filtering the nasty bits, and whether it strips any of the good bits.
As I understood his experiment, they poured a third of magnum free-hand, the next third through cheesecloth, and the last third through a paper coffee filter. The majority preferred the free-hand pour, then the cheesecloth, then the coffee filter.
Since the overwhelming amount of sediment would be expected to be in the last third of the bottle, I’m not sure what we should conclude. You’d have to change the order of the filtration (or non-filtration) methods for various bottles before drawing a conclusion.
I agree–hard to draw conclusions from that. what I’d do is start with non-sediment containing wine and taste non-filtered, paper filtered, and nonpaper filtered to see if you can tell any difference. then I’d take a bottle of wine with pretty heavy sediment that has been standing. pour off the non sediment sample. then shake up the rest to distribute sediment and filter with paper and non-paper. Sample blinded.
Nothing is perfect. You can find flaws with this method. but it would be worth trying with several bottles to see if there was a pattern.
Majority say coffee filters bad idea for removing sediment. Must be some reason. Last posts by Al and John suggest that science confuses issue (almost always case with wine, even though Al is damn fine scientific mind). Seems you lack skills required to pick apart my argument in minds other than your own. Seems you do not see your own rhetoic as ad hominem. I do, Taylor does. Coffee not your strong suit, IMO. Truffles not, either. Some doubt about wine, too.
Anton-fining and filtration in winery has nothing to do with removing sediment from bottle before you drink.
Bye-bye to filtering thread. Served its purpose.
So am I the only one who stands my old Barolo at a 60 degree angle for a minimum of 42 days, before pouring it through an unbleached paper filter coated in organic free-range egg white, followed by putting it back in the bottle and slow-O’ing for between 6.25 hours and 8.5 hours depending on a complex formula taking into account barrel country of origin and size, maceration time, and the use of roto-fermeneters?
Absolutely not. That is where most people on this thread STARTED, but with the passage of time and more experience, their techniques have become far more complex and sophisticated…
If I lost an argument here, Yaacov, you had nothing to do with it. (I always run the risk of besting myself, of course. ) You never made an argument. You merely stated your practice and then quibbled with and resisted the arguments and learning of others. That is not arguing. That is sticking your head in the sand. If we had a WB debating team, we would have to kick you off of it. A guy who presents no facts of his own is hardly an appropriate arbiter of the factual content of others. Take a count of how many people are advocates of using paper coffee filters for wine on this thread, Yaacov. List all arguments in favor. Then take a count of those opposed, and list all arguments against. Oh, it’s not scientific, I can hear Yaacov saying. I have appointed myself the official scorekeeper, and I declare that there are no facts here but mine, and I am keeping them to myself.
Whoa…You’re comparing rrobusta to arabica here: I wouldn’t expect you to find filtered coffee techniques Anywhere in Italy, where espresso reigns supreme. Also, I would hardly call coffee drinking a “fad” in the US, since that has been the caffeinated drink of choice here since the time the insurrectionists dressed falsely in Native American garb tipped over a few tea chests in Boston Harbor a couple of centuries ago.
I did your homework for you, Yaacov. Unscientific and un-factual as this thread may be, he is what the group thinks (some voted for more than one possibility):
No filtering-7
Nylon or metal mesh filter-7
Cheesecloth-3
Paper coffee filter-2 (Yaacov and Stuart)
Against the use of coffee filters-11
The Zylberberg solution-maybe some type of paper filter, no, a pipette, no, maybe a centrifuge, no, you will probabl;y never get fine sediment out of your wine at all, even if you pour as though you are holding the baby Jesus (or words to all of those effects)-1
Except that we stopped pouring before the sediment reached the paper filter. So in effect, all decanters were treated the same when it came to the Port. This was done on purpose to get the most accurate results.
I also said the majority preferred the free hand. There were still a couple who preferred one of the other methods. However, the majority overwhelmingly preferred free hand.
For me the interesting part was some of those taking part in attendance, up to that point, liked to use coffee filters to decant with. Yet the tastings I had been to with them in the past I’d gotten a lot of metallic tasting and spirit Ports. I didn’t know what the issue was until after this tasting when I realized it was coming from using coffee filters to decant with. These friends now rarely use coffee filters. If they do they free hand pour until the very last bit of the bottle where they then filter out the last of the bottle through the coffee filter, to mitigate any issues of filtering all the wine through the coffee filter. Interestingly, I’ve not gotten that same metallic/spirit note anymore. This has convinced me coffee filters are horrible to use to decant wine.
Just as some people prefer Cab’s, some Pinot’s, some reds, and some whites. I feel this is a personal issue that each person has to decide based on how they like a wine to taste. Some people may like what a coffee filter does to the wine. That’s fine as that’s their preference. I’ve simply learned that I don’t like my wine filtered through coffee filters.
OK, let me add my anecdote from last night. Came home, hadn’t stood any bottle up. Grabbed a 1990 Robert Chevillon Nuits St. Georges 1er cru “Les Roncieres” (with the roast pork). Stood it up for half hour; lots of sediment. Put the whole thing through brown coffee filter. Left it to aerate for an hour in decanter. Thought the wine was excellent. Left it in corked bottle until this morning. In glass this morning, it was velvety with deep red fruits and some chocolate with a finish that was all fruit…and lingered and lingered. Beautiful nose, that hadn’t yet shown up as well last night…and the palate was much improved.
Conclusion: Wish I had more of them to run through Melitta brown filters, but that was my last '90 Roncieres (luckily other '90 Chevillons still there, bought at winery in '92)…no option to free pour…and know the gold mesh coffee filters won’t take anything re: sediment out. The paper was nice and crudded up.
That seems to be the central theme of your argument, Bill, but it is really pretty badly wrong. People do plenty of things for no reason at all, or for reasons that are patently invalid. “Follow the Leader” is a built-in feature of the species, and depends very little on whether or not the leader himself did what he did for the right reasons. [u]See this link for more on how that works.[/u]
There’s an interesting method. Suck the wine out of the bottle with a turkey baster so you don’t have to tilt the bottle. Perhaps surgical tubing attached to the nozzle of the baster since you can’t get down into the bottle with the baster. Definitely full wine geek.
I don’t get the sense that Bill is appealing to the crowd, but rather appealing to the majority participating in this thread. Of that group we suspect is somehow more discerning or objective than the general population (at least we all like to think so!). The sentiment seems to be that if a group of experienced tasters, who are discerning about their wine and coffee, prefer not to use paper filters then surely that must indicate something.
) You never made an argument. You merely stated your practice and then quibbled with and resisted the arguments and learning of others. That is not arguing. That is sticking your head in the sand. If we had a WB debating team, we would have to kick you off of it. A guy who presents no facts of his own is hardly an appropriate arbiter of the factual content of others. Take a count of how many people are advocates of using paper coffee filters for wine on this thread, Yaacov. List all arguments in favor. Then take a count of those opposed, and list all arguments against. Oh, it’s not scientific, I can hear Yaacov saying. I have appointed myself the official scorekeeper, and I declare that there are no facts here but mine, and I am keeping them to myself.
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