concord sediment problem

[Bear]

Hello, I am new to this site. I made wine from concord grapes, but when I refridgerate it sediment developes. The way I made the wine is, I crushed the grapes, added sugar,pectic enzyme,and potassium metabisulphite. After 24 hrs I added yeast nutrient and yeast. When the wine was done working I added potassium sorbate and sugar to taste. The wine is clear until I refridgerate it then it gets sediment in it. If anyone has any answers please let me know.
Thanks, Bear

 

[Runningwolf]

First off welcome to WMT. How long did you age this wine and did you filter? How many times did you rack after fermentation.

It sounds like you did not cold stabilize and you're getting tartrates dropping out when you chill your wine.

 

[Turock]

You shouldn't use sorbate until a wine is fully cleared and stabile. Which means a wine like concord should be fully aged up for about one year, racked off sediment and clear. Sorbate cannot work with so many yeast cells present. If you used calcium carbonate for acid adjustment, cold stabiliztion works well to drop out tartaric crystals. Otherwise, the CS done by putting the bottle in the frig will always yield some sediment.

The other thing about sediment on concord is that this is a very low tannin grape. Adding some tannin helps mouthfeel and stabilizes the color so you don't get so much color plating out in the bottle. I'm not sure if you have color plating, but thought I'd mention it along with the sediment problem.

How old is this wine--is it one year old or did you just make it this year???

 

[Bear]

You shouldn't use sorbate until a wine is fully cleared and stabile. Which means a wine like concord should be fully aged up for about one year, racked off sediment and clear. Sorbate cannot work with so many yeast cells present. If you used calcium carbonate for acid adjustment, cold stabiliztion works well to drop out tartaric crystals. Otherwise, the CS done by putting the bottle in the frig will always yield some sediment.

The other thing about sediment on concord is that this is a very low tannin grape. Adding some tannin helps mouthfeel and stabilizes the color so you don't get so much color plating out in the bottle. I'm not sure if you have color plating, but thought I'd mention it along with the sediment problem.

How old is this wine--is it one year old or did you just make it this year???

The wine was made this year. I racked it twice. Could you tell me how to cold stabilize the wine? I am new to this, what is color plating? ...the color is good.
Thanks for your help.
Bear

 

[Turock]

OK-----this is a young wine. You should NOT have sorbated it. Grape wine---especially a red needs about 1 year to age in the carboy. The flavor develops very well in that 1 year time frame.

We rack off of the gross lees just 1 time on our concord, then it ages undisturbed for 1 year or longer. Actually, we found the flavor is better if it ages about 1.5 years. Reds don't typically undergo cold stabilization because they clear very well on their own. But often, you'll get a little sediment in the bottles once they undergo refrigeration. We don't mind this sediment---I've seen many expensive wines with sediment in them. CS drops out acid crystals and you might not want this acid to drop out if the acid content is where you want it. PLUS, you need to use calcium carbonate in the primary to benefit from CS. We always use calcium carbonate to get the PH up because concord is a low brix grape and is always too acidic without the use of calcium carbonate. Our PH on concord is set to about 3.4

I know you said the wine was clear--but often it will LOOK clear, but it actually isn't and will continue to drop out more if you leave it to age. No grape wine is stabile in a few months. Sorbate is only used when sugar is added in order to keep the yeast cells from reproducing and continuing the ferment. But you can't use it until the wine is perfectly clear---racking and sometimes filtering if needed gets rid of about 80% of the yeast cells----THEN sorbate will work. There are many white papers on the wine sites that talk about sorbate,how they work, WHEN to use them. You might want to go read some of these--E.C.Kraus has a good discussion of it on one of their blogs.

You can have GREAT color on a concord---then one day, you pull a bottle out and begin to pour wine and you see the color all plated out on the side of the bottle. This is because the color has not been stabilized and adding tannin will stabilize the wine and stabilize the color. Concord is very low on tannin--most of the time, the seeds in the grape are still green. So adding some tannin at the primary or into the secondary is a big benefit to color and mouthfeel.