Sediment in my Maderia.Where dit it come from?

[Woodbee]

Howdy All.
I bottled my first batch of Maderia this weekend. I didn't think that I could be any more pleased. Until this AM when I went to put the bottles on a shelf and was horrified to see a black sediment on the bottom of each of the bottles. Where could this have come from? I started with a batch of Mulled Apple wine that had finished beautifully clear. It had been racked four times and showed no signs of sediment. And of course the brandy I used was also clear. It spent three months in the oven at 130 degrees. Since everything was clear to start with, I decided not to mess with siphons and filling canes. I just poured the wine from the glass jugs that I used in the Estufa into a plastic pitcher and they used a funnel to fill all of my bottles. Wrong wrong wrong.
One problem is that a few bottles have already went out the door to some friends. I went ahead and uncorked them all, poured them into a carboy and will allow it to settle and then bottle it properly.
All that said, I have just put 5 gals. or Bartlett pear wine into the oven. You can be sure that come Aug. I will look real hard at the sediment thing. Thinking back,I also remember that there was a pretty dark smokey film on the insides of the jugs I used in the oven, below the fluid line not above. At 130 degrees nothing was burning so where do you all think this stuff came from?
Brad

 

[St Allie]

darn.. that must be really annoying.

maybe it's a combination of the heat of the jugs and the wine contacting it?.. leaving a sediment on the inside of the jug walls? I don't think it's the brandy.

hopefully leaving it to settle out will fix the problem.

how does it taste?

Allie

 

[Woodbee]

Allie, It tastes great. It is very complex. The Mullings spices have come through well. The ginger is what I noticed most but not overpowering. Since baking, it has taken on a smokey caramel taste that I was looking for. A friend suggested "Oaking" my new batch. But having read so much here about potential problems with oak I am a little afraid of "Sucking the Plank"
I let my maderia settle out in a carboy a few days and I think I am ready to bottle again. Looks like I might only loose a cup or two of wine. I'll keep that around in a decanter and drink it first as I carefully pour it off.
Brad

 

[Luc]

Brad,

Every time you mix anything into a wine chemical reactions might occur that might cause a haze or sediment.
So when you added brandy to the wine something might have happened that caused this.

Next, heating causes most chemical reactions to speed up. That is why wine is aged in a low temperature environment.

Then the next part is that it is cooled down which may also cause chemical reactions to occur (think cold stabilising).

So each time you perform an action to a wine you really should give it time to get accustomed to the new situation.

Luc