Unfiltered Wines

A current trend in winemaking is to not filter wines. Many winemakers feel filtration strips the wine of flavors and its richness in mouthfeel. The wines will be allowed to naturally settle any solids that develop or are added during processing. Most wines will have no difficulty being finished as unfiltered, especially red wines. Some white wines may not completely settle fine particles and can be left with a cloudy appearance that can require rough or polish filtering to remove. Wines that undergo certain fining treatments that require removing trace amounts of the fining agent must be filtered as well. Wines that have residual sugar or do not undergo malolactic fermentation usually require sterile filtration as remaining microbes can cause fermentations in the bottle or the growth of spoilage organisms. Unfiltered wines quite often develop some sediment in the bottle as minor amounts of solid material will eventually drop out of solution and precipitate. This sediment is harmless to consumers so no worry should be given to accidentally eating wine sediment other than not enjoying its flavor.