Filter old wine?

Was thinking about the recommendation to stand up Nebbiolo for a month before decanting it. Why not run it through a filter:
Beer and Wine Filtering Kit (10") | MoreWine. It claims “5 micron filters are the best choice when there is visible sediment in your wine. A 5 micron filter will remove almost all visible sediment and yeast”. I imagine you’ll squeeze out another quarter glass of precious wine. And won’t need to plan a month ahead to drink it. This is basically a more nerdy cheese cloth at the end of the day. Maybe the filters soak up all the wine? Or maybe it changes the taste?

I haven’t done this myself. Just wondering…

Much of the color in the wine, as well as the mouthfeel, comes from very small particles and the more you filter out, the more you change your wine. With an old Port, you’ll have a lot of sediment if you shake it up. With an old Barolo, if you stand it for a day or so, you’ll probably be OK unless you’re really anal about sediment. But I don’t know why you would be - I’ve had many an older Barolo that hadn’t been left standing for a day, much less a week. Let it sit for an hour or so if possible and don’t worry so much about sediment is my approach.

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Standing the wine up for longer than 24 hours or so isn’t really going to do anything. Anything that hasn’t settled in a day is going to be light enough to remain suspended in the wine. In fact I doubt there would be any significant change after about four hours.

Stand it up for a bit, then decant all but the final inch or so. Then once you’ve polished off the main event, run the final few dregs through a filter (or cheesecloth) and have it for dessert. That way you avoid changing the wine too much, but can still enjoy the entire bottle without crud getting in your mouth.

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Isn’t there somebody who says they always filter their wine. I’m not motivated enough to do a search but interested parties might find what they need. Or perhaps that person will weigh in on this thread given the topic.

Some think that certain varieties have finer sediment than others. I’ve not seen any science on that, but perhaps it’s true. Even so, I tend to agree with Oliver. If you’re able to discern the difference between four days and one day of standing upright, you’re a rare bird.

I agree with Oliver, decanting 90+% off (recommended after a certain time of slow-oxing) … then filtering the rest
gives a fine result (and I use cheap odourless paper tissues).

However, although most wines are quite clear after some hours or a full day of standing upright, there are exceptions like some old Nebbiolo or old Burgundies which are still not clear after 1-2 days, but after app. 1-2 weeks, especially after a longer journey.
And THERE IS a difference in taste between a clear and cloudy wine …

Looks like the objective is to leave the colloid alone and filter out the non-wine substances.

If you filter with a tasteless/odorless filter (probably best with a coffee filter that’s either unbleached or oxygen bleached, and rinsed a few times before using for wine) that allows through particles that are 1,000nm or smaller, should be no issue.

http://www.wineskills.co.uk/winemaking/winemaking-knowledge-base/colloids

Coffee filters allow through substances that are 15x to 20x larger (filters have a 20,000nm weave, so a 15,000nm particle will have no problems and we’re really talking about 1,000nm particles for the colloid), so there should be zero issues filtering wine through a coffee filter.

I filter most wines this way; I stand up for a while, then take an oxygen bleached coffee filter, rinse it twice, and then filter the bottle.

If we want to let through 1,000nm particles… then the 5,000nm particle filter in the OP would work well without being detrimental to the wine?

Greg – I doubt there are studies, but just look at the wines. There’s a big difference between, say, an old Bordeaux, an old Northern Rhone and Barolo.

The syrah sediment crusts on the side of the bottle (a little like Port), if it’s been stored on its side. Nothing like that happens with the other two wines. So something is different about its makeup.

The sediments of nebbiolo and pinot really are finer. Old bottles that have been transported or shaken up can remain cloudy for a long time, and that sediment messes up the flavor of the wine big time for both. I can’t tell you how many times people have brought older Burgundies to dinners and tastings and they are cloudy and bitter. It drives me nuts!

By contrast, I think Bordeaux sediment tends to settle faster and it’s not so nasty. It seems fine to transport them and then decant soon after. And I’m often quite happy to pour the dregs and sip the wine off them carefully. You do NOT want to do that with Barolo.

my theory on this is that we’re talking about wines that have been waiting 10-60 years to be opened, possibly I’VE had it for 15 years. whats an extra week standing for these in order to ensure that we have the best experience possible when we open it? even if we’re talking about 2-3% differences, think about the difference between a wine you rate a 92 and one you rate a 95. for me, thats huge. i dont wannt risk taking it from the higher to the lower because i filtered out some flavor components or because i didn’t let that 5% of sediment settle out



side, but related, question: has anyone ever tried using centripetal force for sediment?

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Stuart (“Beaunehead”) has posted about this. I can attest from personal experience, however, that really old Baroli from 50’s-60’s definitely need to be stood up for a long time. There is a very fine, stringy, bitter sediment that virtually destroys the character of the wine. I suspect filter would not catch all of it, but also reluctant to use on wines that old. I have not had same problem with Burgundy, but rarely have drank ones dating earlier from the late '70’s.

Sounds like a test need to be had on one of these filters… don’t need to test it on super expensive bottles of wine either… just two old ones. Will investigate this at the offlines coming up in NY…

I wouldn’t use a filter apart from on the dregs if I particularly wanted to drink them. No evidence that it would hurt it but I just wouldn’t take the chance; also, the sediment is so fine I doubt a filter would separate out all of it.

Regarding how long it can take for the sediment to settle: I had a case of '69 Oddero Barolo shipped to me last year that took about 4 months. That was pretty extreme but not anomalous. The wine was still cloudy after 2 months. I opened a bottle a month later and it still had the bitter, acrid taste from the sediment, despite starting to look relatively clear. A month later it was great, as have all the bottles I’ve opened since.

I actually store my Barolo upright so it’s not a problem when drinking it at home. I haven’t actually brought a bottle out of the house; wouldn’t risk the sediment getting churned up, and would be worried double decanting would shock it.

Many wines are passed through filters finer than anything in your home before being bottled.

I try to stand it up for about 24 hours and have the last bit with dinner, not dessert (too many stickies for that), but otherwise do something like this.

I mean that the dregs are the dessert [cheers.gif] [wow.gif]

Some observations on this specific subject, we drink a lot of old nebbiolos (not just Barolo), mostly 60s and 70s, about one bottle/week for the last few years. I have shelves in my basement wine closet devoted to standing bottles for just this reason, and track the date at which each bottle was moved to that location.

My experience: while obviously depending on the individual wine, to reliably decant a bright, clear wine off nebbiolo sediment, 6-8 weeks upright and undisturbed is not excessive; that is, less than this cannot be depended on to do the job (although it may, of course).

I have also tried unbleached coffee filters, and even those which have such fine pores that the wine will hardly drip through still leave many wines cloudy. As has been mentioned above, if the wine is filtered during production, it probably involved a much finer filter than a paper coffee filter, as well as hydraulic pressure.

FWIW, most unbleached coffee filters are 20um in size. The set up in the OP is 5um and vendor offers 1 and 2um filters as well.

Maybe I’m thinking about this the wrong way, but it seems that the filter used when the wine was bottled is not particularly relevant when discussing filtration of an aged bottle of wine. I assume those chemical reactions that take place in wine that cause sediments to precipitate are doing so by creating larger molecules. Thus, whatever picometer/nanometer filter used at bottling grabs molecules of a certain size at that time, but invariably you’ll end up with wine containing larger molecules. If I’m wrong about this I welcome the education.

I doubt anyone is using pico/nanometer filters in wine production, since that would probably be very slow, but I’m not a winemaker. However, in the a biomedical lab we typically use a 0.2 micrometer/micron (200nM) filter to sterile filter liquids, which will remove virtually all microbial species (mycoplasma is smaller), but you have to use vacuum or positive pressure to force a liquid through such a filter. I’m sure these are much better (and expensive) filters than what would be typical in a commercial operation too.

These sizes are way bigger than any “molecules”. For example, an average-sized protein is about 5nm. Most of the chemicals responsible for the flavor or aroma of a wine are presumably far smaller than that.

Personally, I will stand a bottle up for a week, decant most of of it, then run the last glass worth through a Melitta #2 unbleached paper coffee filter and then add that to the decanter (after tasting it). I’ve never noticed any adverse effect, although depending on the bottle or sediment, some very fine haze can still sneak through, which no one has ever complained about to me.