Filtering wines in the decanting process

[Nick_Gangas]

I have a question, is my chocolate peanut butter triple mocha frapa colada filtered by paper or gold mesh ?

[Gary_York]

Looking to visiting The Centrifuge and Pipette wine bar/coffee shop next year when I am in Piedmont.

[Bill_Klapp_deactivated]

@Nick Gangas

I have a question, is my chocolate peanut butter triple mocha frapa colada filtered by paper or gold mesh ?

Gold, if you paid $7 for it at Starbuck’s…

[DougS]

How long does it take the wine to recover from centrifuge shock?

[Joe_S]

Anyone ever think about putting their next 20 yr old wine in a paint mixing machine? Placing all those little bits back in suspension is after all how the winemaker released those wines and is therefor what the winemaker intended.

[Mike_During]

@Bill Klapp

Not off the wall at all, John. It is common sense rarely discussed or applied by wine board denizens! With Nebbiolo, you absolutely should, John, and probably with all bottles that throw considerable sediment. The 55-degree, on-the-side business is so much crap and voodoo science at one level of analysis. Perhaps smart if you are going to resell your wine in mint condition one day, but it makes no sense at all for bottles sure to be consumed in a given year. Sound corks will not dry out and fail in a year. I did not say so, but I absolutely reject the Zylberberg contention that fine sediment does not settle when applied bottles of old Nebbiolo. The collective drinking experience of the old Nebbioloheads conclusively proves otherwise. (Ask Bill Boykin how long his bottles stand for.) Filtering may still be required, but you can pour clear wine after standing the bottle up for an extended period, which is not likely possible with the During method (although his approach is also one calculated to keep sediment only in one area of the bottle), and rarely possible if a bottle stored on its side is moved, popped and poured, or opened after recent shipping. No two bottles of wine are alike, of course, but old Nebbiolo almost always poses the sediment problem, which is why restaurants and wine shops here store so many bottles upright.

I agree that standing a bottle means you need to take less care, but that is not the point for most of us. Seems obvious that sediment will move more by tilting it 90 degrees than 10-20 degrees. It is not rocket science. The only reason to think standing upright is better is because wine bottles are relatively tall and narrow and the impact of the 90% change is not as obvious as it would on a shorter fat bottle, the principle remains the same.
Why not do a simple experiment by collecting some sediment from several of your old bottles, mix with water, decant into two clear Sauterne bottles. Store one upright and the other near horizontal for a week or two and decant.

[Bill_Boykin]

@Bill Klapp

Ask Bill Boykin how long his bottles stand for.

Who?

[Mike_During]

@Bill Bøykin

@Bill Klapp

Ask Bill Boykin how long his bottles stand for.

Who?

Perhaps he should do a third and gift it to you

[SteveG]

As one who has a significant but not unending supply of older Italian reds (mostly 1960s), I am of course interested in this subject but also have some experience.

My habit is to select my next victim and stand the bottle up in my cellar about 3-4 weeks prior to opening. After removing the cork I double decant the wine back into the (cleaned and dried) bottle, and generally find the view extremely if not perfectly clear of sediment. The dregs remaining in the bottle after decanting are perhaps 2 tablespoons, so maybe 4% of the bottle, and while I have tried dripping this through a paper coffee filter, I don’t really think it is worth the trouble.

That said, there are times I would like to be able to pour through a filter and so I am asking opinions regarding material and pore size. Here is what I have found reasonably available (not all combinations obviously):

polyester
nylon
stainless steel
PTFE coated wire

800 microns
600
400
300
175
150
100
75
15

[Bill_Klapp_deactivated]

@Mike During

@Bill Klapp

Not off the wall at all, John. It is common sense rarely discussed or applied by wine board denizens! With Nebbiolo, you absolutely should, John, and probably with all bottles that throw considerable sediment. The 55-degree, on-the-side business is so much crap and voodoo science at one level of analysis. Perhaps smart if you are going to resell your wine in mint condition one day, but it makes no sense at all for bottles sure to be consumed in a given year. Sound corks will not dry out and fail in a year. I did not say so, but I absolutely reject the Zylberberg contention that fine sediment does not settle when applied bottles of old Nebbiolo. The collective drinking experience of the old Nebbioloheads conclusively proves otherwise. (Ask Bill Boykin how long his bottles stand for.) Filtering may still be required, but you can pour clear wine after standing the bottle up for an extended period, which is not likely possible with the During method (although his approach is also one calculated to keep sediment only in one area of the bottle), and rarely possible if a bottle stored on its side is moved, popped and poured, or opened after recent shipping. No two bottles of wine are alike, of course, but old Nebbiolo almost always poses the sediment problem, which is why restaurants and wine shops here store so many bottles upright.

I agree that standing a bottle means you need to take less care, but that is not the point for most of us. Seems obvious that sediment will move more by tilting it 90 degrees than 10-20 degrees. It is not rocket science. The only reason to think standing upright is better is because wine bottles are relatively tall and narrow and the impact of the 90% change is not as obvious as it would on a shorter fat bottle, the principle remains the same.
Why not do a simple experiment by collecting some sediment from several of your old bottles, mix with water, decant into two clear Sauterne bottles. Store one upright and the other near horizontal for a week or two and decant.

Mike, when you are dealing with old Nebbiolo, as opposed to other wines, you stand the wine up for weeks or months whenever possible, so 20 degrees or 90 degrees makes no difference at all, but I understand your theory of the case, and I find it infinitely more plausible than coffee filters. The sediment will settle, or else I will use my Zylberberganator on it!

[Mike_During]

Bill, still I think you should do the experiment, decanting water has appeal and you should not be too set in your Nebbiolo ways

[Chae_Yi]

Guys! Use a transporter beam to move the wine sans sediment to the decanter. A Presto!

BTW, my new favorite coffee maker is the Aero Press, by the guy who invented the Aerobie frisbee.

[Bill_Klapp_deactivated]

@Mike During

Bill, still I think you should do the experiment, decanting water has appeal and you should not be too set in your Nebbiolo ways

Mike, I don’t have any real incentive to change an approach that works perfectly well. I find that I am also getting a bit stingy about not getting as much clear wine as I can from wines like old Giacosa red labels and Monfortinos, which have now turned into four-figure bottles not to be trifled with.

P.S. I saw your poke over on the write-up of Jon Favre’s latest attempt to drown himself in a butt of malmsey, er, a case of wine at a single sitting. You need not worry about his decanting protocol. His frequent stream-of-(un)consciousness tasting notes suggest that he is a pop-and-pour kind of guy with 5-year-old grand cru Burgundies anyway. With the post-graduate equivalent of binge drinking, the Barolo glass was probably not in front of him long enough for him to detect the sediment in his glass or view it as a problem!

[Bill_Klapp_deactivated]

As a further demonstration of the vagaries of this decanting business: I opened a 1967 Produttori del Barbaresco Rabaja Riserva Speciale last night for consumption tonight. The sediment had formed sheets of a size and quantity that I usually associate with port rather than most other red wines. I suspect that this particular bottle sat in the same spot for a very long time, given its provenance. Both bottle and wine were in excellent condition. I decanted clear wine down to perhaps an ounce left, then the sheets bunched and clotted at the mouth of the bottle so that they could be pulled out, then I filtered the last ounce of wine and found only 10 or so grains of the dreaded ultra-fine sediment, with one drop of wine, trapped in the filter. Wine is like a box of chocolates, I suppose…