Michael is writing this one on his own. Anne doesn’t have much to say about the home winery, except when there’s quality control to be done.
Many things are seasonal in the winery – whether it is a commercial operation or a humble garage operation such as mine. Spring is generally when white wines are being processed in preparation for bottling for summer enjoyment and beyond.
So I am finishing cold treating my white wine in advance of blending (an art in itself and another show). Filtering is the next step to remove any elements that can cloud a wine such as dead yeast, fining agents such as bentonite and tartar crystals which appear as bits of glass in your wine.
Home winemakers have the blessing of equipment scaled down to smaller batches of wine – the Buon Vino wine filtration system is my equipment of choice.
Filters of cellulose are soaked in water and wine is sucked through them into a new container releasing CO2 gas while trapping tartar and debris.
The beauty of filtering in the Spring is that it frees up tank space, allows me to turn off a spare fridge until harvest, reducing my electric bill, and allows me to schedule blending trials and bottling before the next harvest in September.