White Film Floating on top of Wine ?

[freddie]

Just after my MLF I racked my wine to clean containers. As I didn't have enough to fill another carboy, I allocated the wine to various 10L, 5L and 2L containers.

The variety is Sangiovese. It's winter here in Australia and just about a month ago I noticed the formation of a white film accumulating at the top of each container. It appears to be powdery in nature with some granular bits adhering to the neck of the glass.

The containers are topped right up with bearly 10-20mm to the underside of the bung.

Can someone tell me what this is and why it has formed. Also will it impact on the quality of my wine.

 

[Deezil]

Can you take a picture by chance?

Did you add any sulfites?
MLF only works with low levels of sulfites, and wines become susceptible without that protection, after fermentation or MLF quit creating CO2 to expell

Sounds like mycoderma, but... Could be some other form of surface yeast or bacteria

 

[manvsvine]

Sounds just like myconderma or flowers of wine a film yeast , the most common spoilage bugs in wine making,

Keeping things topped up is very important but having enough free so2 is also critical , especialy with higher ph wines.

You can rack the wine out from under the film or add more wine to flood it out over the top of the container . Store bought wine is ok for this .

And then add an intervention dose of kmeta (so2) ie 60-80 ppm . This will kill the bugs and bind up some of the spoilage bi products
Check your free so2 levels every few months and adjust to 25-30 ppm (1/4 tsp of kmeta per carboy every 4 months is ok but measuring is prefered)

If you can do a tight filter , ie .45 , do it .

 

[ShawnDTurner]

Could also be that if you added kmeta in powder form it did not completely dissolve. It will float back to top, especially that it is granule like. Cheers

 

[manvsvine]

Could also be that if you added kmeta in powder form it did not completely dissolve. It will float back to top, especially that it is granule like. Cheers

Unlikely as this has been in place for a month , kmeta would have dissolved by now .

You need to move quickly with this problem to save the wine , off flavours develop quickly from myconderma . Most of the time you can save it. But advanced cases arenot salvageable

 

[Downwards]

Could it be wine diamonds also? OP says it's been cold.. I've never seen them before only ever read about them.

 

[Brew and Wine Supply]

diamonds will be at the bottom like salt crystals not on the top.

 

[Beaumagi]

I just went earlier this morning to move my pear wine from my primary fermenter (a 7-gallon bucket with a cloth cover kept on by rubberband) into the carboy and there was a white film on top. I am assuming it is mycoderma. It isn't smelling bad at all yet. The problem is I can't skim it off as I agitated the wine and much of it got mixed in. My question is: "If I stop fermentation with Sodium metabisulfite and allow the gas to dissipate, then add fresh yeast will this restart a clean fermentation again and take care of the bacteria?"

 

[salcoco]

flower of wine usually do not form in fermenting wine. are your observation backed up by measurements. if the wine is still fragmenting you should be okay. if your specific gravity is below 1.000 rack to carboy add k-meta and a airlock.