Hazy wine after blending

[ffemt128]

Over the weekend I blended some wines. I made a Concord, Catawba, Fredonia blend and a Concord Fredonia Niagra blend. Each wine individually was clear with no haze (shining laser pointer through them). Post blending I'm getting a haze. I'm thinking the culprit is the Concord as I also blended a Fredonia-Catawba and a Niagra-Concord and the the Niagra-Concord has a very slight haze. What could be causing the haze since individually they were clear. I'm thinking I may need to add some pectic enzyme but wanted to throw it out here to the group.

 

[Julie]

I would give it a couple of weeks to see if it clears on it's own. I have had wine that was very clear and when I racked it clouded back up and it has cleared on it's own. When you rack you stirs things back up and even thou it is very clear looking sometimes there is still sediment that we just don't see until we rack.

 

[stickman]

Pectin does cause haze, but usually you see this before blending. Did you use pectic enzyme during fermentation of the wines?
Keep in mind, blending often causes precipitation of materials that weren't visible before. Tartrates will drop out due to the blended wine coming to a new acid and potassium balance, even an increase in alcohol percent can cause this. If the white wine has residual protein due to incomplete fining, then the protein will also drop out if blending with a red or other wine that has free tannin. As indicated above, it may clear in a week or two.

 

[ffemt128]

I'll let it set for a while and see what happens.

 

[Turock]

What is the age on these wines--how long were they bulk aged?

 

[ffemt128]

They are young wines that have gone through cold stabilization. About 7 months old. This isn't the first time I've blended and bottled PA wine this early. I've just never had it go hazy after being clear from as a result of the blending.

 

[ffemt128]

Surprisingly wines that were crystal clear with no sediment still drop sediment when blended. I checked the wines last night and there is a light coating of sediment on the bottom of the carboy...Guess I won't be bottling this weekend.

 

[Turock]

That's why I asked you how old they were. A wine is still pretty young at 6 or 7 months, especially grape wine. Concord needs a good 1 1/2 years in bulk aging for the flavor to come forward. And you have to realize that wine needs a lot of time to have all the sediment fall out completely because of protein, potassium, tartrates, and sometimes even DIRT. What looks clear, may not be as clear as you think it is. All our wines get a good full year of aging before they are bottled and one reason for this is to be sure they have had enough time for sediment to fall out.