White Powder and Wine

As I was cutting drywall to repair the damage from our recent flood, I couldn't help but notice the copious amounts of white powder collecting around my feet. Mysterious white powders have a villainy of their own in this day and age, and yet being the wine guy I am, that was not what came to my mind. [Interestingly enough it wasn't until I was coming up with the title for this blog that the other infamous white powders Aspen is known for came to me.]

Instead what popped into my wine soaked brain was Diatomaceous Earth. Diatoms are microscopic algae that have been around as long as life on earth has. Given the right circumstances when they die, they fossilize into a rock called diatomite. It is the powdered version of this that is used in filtering wine.

Few parts of the wine making process give rise to more controversy than filtering wine. I am already on the record, more than thrice, for defending the practice, when done correctly.

So why the hoopla? Why have some importers such as Kermit Lynch based their reputations on not filtering wine? The easy answer is that done poorly, filtering is bad for the wine.

Wine filters are not altogether that different than coffee filters. A piece of paper with specific sized holes is used to trap the impurities. in the case of wine, and many other forms of filtering, the addition of a powder such as diatomaceous earth can trap even more of anything undesirable in wine.

The trick is in using appropriate technology. You don't want to filter out the good parts of the wine. A half century ago this may have been a hit or miss proposition, but the amount of precise control in modern applications has greatly reduced the dangers of this valuable technique.

Bacteria in wine is not a good thing. While we want it there (in the form of yeast) during the wine making process, we want the wine to be sterile when it is bottled. Otherwise, the wine can become slightly sparkling (frizante) in the bottle, and even cause the bottle to explode. Any number of off aromas and undesirable flavors may also be found in wine that is less than sterile.

This is but one of the main reasons to filter (usually as a secondary filtering just before bottling).

In this day and age a cloudy wine is an aberration. Most consumers are distraught to see signs of the totally harmless tartaric precipitate (little crystals you find on the cork sometimes). Imagine how they would react to a wine that had various bits of stuff (colloidal matter) floating about.

Sure, finding the right combination of filtering materials and pressure as well as protecting from exposure to oxygen are all parts of what makes filtering a challenge; but the results are a brilliantly clear, sterile wine, with all of its flavors and aromas intact.

The alternative, simply skipping the filtering step, seems to be the easy way out, with lowered expectations.

And so I throw a gauntlet into the face of Kermit Lynch and any and all others that eschew filtering out of hand. If you think that your way is better, prove it to me with a double blind tasting. Let me see your procedures and data, and or better yet, let me participate.

In the mean time, and since I don't expect to receive an invitation soon, try the tasting yourself. While you will rarely have the chance to try the same wine both filtered and unfiltered, you can find similar wines. Just look for "unfiltered" on the label, and try to find a wine of the same type, region and vintage.

Do it more than once, with different types of wine. Come to your own conclusions, and let us all know what you think.