weird unidentified blob like things?

[lockwood1956]

i recon im going to do as you advised... ill make sure to sulphite my wines from now on.

top banana


where in the UK are you?


could you get a sample of the wine here to me for sampling by myself Karl and Richard_s

[forgotten]

ha ha full of top blagging skills aswell as fine suggestions...


im down bristol way... sadly not close enough to pop up to west yorkshire im affraid..

[forgotten]

wine diamonds? or tartaric acid crystals....

it would be a good wine if so acording to this article....

http://ezinearticles.com/?Tartaric-C...lity&id=134844

i have just opened a bottle and i recon it could be this as the wine tastes and smells fine....


hummmm what a mistery tour that was...


thanks again

[fatbloke]

i have just opened a bottle and i recon it could be this as the wine tastes and smells fine....

hummmm what a mistery tour that was...

thanks again

Well done. I've been hanging around here for a couple of years now and still find that there's a mountain of stuff that I know nothing about.

so you did right. The only stupid question, is the one that you don't ask.

This lot here at WAH are brilliant. A huge amount of knowledge available but for the asking.......

HNY...

regards

jtfb

[clayhill]

Hiya. If it's like a white fluff floating in the wine could it be protein instability? This should not usually be a problem if the wine was fined with bentonite. Taste your wine and see, if it tastes ok, don't worry too much about the fluff. Did you fine the wine? Sulpher is a good idea to prevent microbial storage. Before bottling, move your wine outside for a week or so in frosty conditions, this will let the tartaric acid precipitate out and form crystals in the bottom of the demijohn.
Hope this helps.

[lockwood1956]

It is a fairly widely held view that the wine diamonds, or tartrate crystals indicate that the wine is good.....

this of course is not always the case, it could be that the wine isn't good because it was harvested too early and therefore contains more acid.

The article that was linked is full of all sorts of inaccuracies, for example it states that the acid increases in the grape with more hang time, this is complete tosh.

regards
Bob

[NorthernWiner]

The article that was linked is full of all sorts of inaccuracies

I just read the article myself and you aren't kidding. My favorite quote:

"In other words, wine diamonds are an indicator that the grapes ripened for a long time, and that the winemaker fermented the wine slowly and with great care. Both are important precursors to crafting high quality wines."

Utter rubbish. As Bob notes, longer hang time means less acid, not more. And while slower fermentation can potentially produce a high quality wine, it has no relevance whatsoever to tartrates.

The article is correct that American wine drinkers tend to view crystals in a less then positive light, but only when it comes to white wines, where clarity is important. I don't know anyone who gives a fig about finding a crunchy bit in a glass of red (unless it's a shard of broken glass).

"Cold stabilization influences a wine’s balance and taste: as some winemakers put it, the wine is actually being ripped apart, and the rapid cooling changes the wine’s colloidal structure. One might call it a clear case of style over substance."

More hogwash. When a wine is cold stabilized, it isn't "ripped apart" but rather chilled to the point where the tartrates precipitate on their own. It's no different than putting a bottle in the fridge. Once the diamonds have settled out, the wine is racked and brought back up to temperature. The result is a wine that remains clear, even when chilled.

[goldseal]

I thought tartaric acid was in solution, not a colloid. Solubility decreases as the temperature drops and it precipiates out.

I'm sure there will be a chemist passing in a bit to clarify this

"cold stabilization is like tossing out the baby with the bathwater. Perhaps you are left with an aesthetically flawless wine, but you are also left with a lesser wine"

So by cold stabilising you cool the wine so the tartrates precipitate out. By NOT cold stabilising you let it happen in the bottle and the result is the same - the tartrates have precipitated out. I can't see the difference.

Apart from that, the only thing which looks wrong on that article is ... everything else.