Impact of filtration on organoleptic properties of bottled wine
To prevent wine degradation in time, before bottling, wine undergoes a filtration stage, where applicable, to prevent the risk of microbial spoilage.
Wine filtration is a mechanical clarifying process, which consists in passing the cloudy liquid through a very fine filtering layer.
Important issues that must be taken into consideration during filtration are to stress the wine as little as possible and to preserve its organoleptic properties, as well as its flavors or bouquet, its body and complexity.
For this, it is recommended during the bottling process, for the wine to be filtered through 2 steps:
- Pre-filtration
This stage is important as it removes all solids in the wine, which solids come from wine treatments, conditioning and maturation, as well as from wine preparation stages for bottling. The purpose of this stage is to reduce contaminants that can clog final filters (solid particulates, yeasts, long-chain / heavy colloids).
As this is a stage when solid particulates pose a major clogging risk for final membranes, Klarwin specialists recommend, depending on winery process flows, the following products:
- PALL cartridges: PREcart PP, Profile Star, Oenoclear
- PALL-Seitz fine filter sheets: K100, KS80 or KS50
- Final filtration
Final filtration or microbiological control filtration has several requirements – in particular, to remove yeast cells, short-chain colloids and microorganisms that could degrade wine and ruin its traits. As this is a stage when wine undergoes a 0.45 um or 0.65 um filtration, the quality of cartridges employed must be high so as not to stress the wine and change wine composition by removing other substances such as: flavours, colouring, tannins and polysaccharides, etc.
Depending on available capabilities in a winery as regards cartridge washing and sterilization, / Depending on the technological flow of sterilization and sanitation availability at the winery Klarwin specialists confidently recommend the following products:
- PALL cartridges: Oenopure, MEMBRAcart XL and Supor Beverage
- PALL-Seitz sterile filter sheets: EKS, EK1, EK and, in some cases, for red wines – KS50 / KS80
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