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Recent posts
Winemaker Dr. Yair Margalit on Wine “Filtering”
Author: IsraeliWineDirect
Posted: 07.29.09 9:36pm GMT | Viewed: 1394 Times
Dr. Yair Margalit is the founding winemaker, in 1989, of Margalit winery. He and winemaker son Asaf have a special interest in Bourdeaux varieties and many (including me) view Margalit as Israel’s premium “cult” winery. Their insistence on low-yield, no-irrigation winemaking results in age-worthy wines that are among the best not just in Israel but in the region and internationally.
His son, Asaf, is lead now winemaker. Check out their new beautiful website.
Yair authored some of the leading texts in small winery operations and wine chemistry.
Today he spends a lot of his time educating a new generation of Israeli winemakers.
I am so proud to be their exclusive importer into the US !
I recently asked him to help me get my head around this issue of wine “filtering“.
Here’s how he responded.
And by the way, Yair (in addition to being someone I consider a friend and major advisor to me) holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry! So I figure he’s someone who ought to know a thing or two about winemaking!
Hi Richard,
In regard to your question about filtering wine, here is the issue:
Filtering is needed to be sure that the wine is clean of sediments. Is done also to prevent microbiological problems, mainly in white wines.
So, in whites it should be done in any case, and best sterile filtering (very tiny filter).
In reds it is recommended to apply at least coarse filtering to assure no flies or other bugs are in the wine.
There is no connection between filtering and wine quality — as you probably heard the oposite in the industry , namely, nothing is collected on the filter except sediments (no colour or taste materials).
Unfiltered wine as a quality criteria is a joke!
We do very coarse filtering to be sure the wine is clean from bugs.
Yours
Yair
Well…what do YOU think about wine filtering and Yair’s response?
More blog entries from IsraeliWineDirect
Comments
Daniel Rogov | 07.30.09 6:55am GMT | Report Abuse
I am much in agreement with Yair Margalit. That unfiltered wines are inherently "better" is nothig more than a myth. Indeed a myth that allows some wineries to charge a good deal more for wines labeled as "unfiltered".
Those wanting more details on this can see the intelligent article at http://www.winesandvines.com/template.cfm?section=columns_article&conten...
Best
Rogov
Scott Shu | 07.30.09 10:43am GMT | Report Abuse
Really interesting to get Yair's view of this. One of the things that is interesting to me about this is I just read Kermit Lynch's Adventures on the Wine Route(http://www.mykerem.com/articles/book-review-adventures-wine-route-kermit...), and he is so adamantly against filtration in the book, he suggests it can make a wine go from great to insipid. Especially the sterile filtering would appall Lynch.
Interesting to have two different view points, I don't favor one over the other at this point, except I have tasted one of Yair's wines and it was outstanding so I would have to give him the advantage : )
Although one question I have is he says filtration has no impact, so why does he choose to do only the coarsest filtering, might there be some benefit to light filtering?
asaf margalit | 07.30.09 2:31pm GMT | Report Abuse
To filter a wine is a necessary practice of wine making – everybody does it. Nobody wants to find a small creature in his bottled wine. The question is: what is the filter density, sterile filter to coarse filter. A sterile wine filter will remove all yeasts and bacteria that may cause sediment and possibly refermentation – very impotent in most of the white wines and to be on the safe side it is a common practice in commercial wineries for all wines reds and whites. The disadvantage of filtering is the possible (?) reduction of color and tannins. Yes, some color molecules and tannins are bond to the filter, but in my opinion it is insignificant. The smallest size of the pores of the filter are 0.45 micron, it is designed to prevent the microorganism ( microorganism size is 0.50 micron ) . The size of the color molecules and tannins is 100 times smaller, so the filter is not preventing those and/or most other molecules to pass through. In some big wineries how has lots of wine to filter, they use most of the time a prefilter ( mechanical separators ) machines like kieselguhr light soil consisting of siliceous diatom remains which in one hand filter roughly and on the other hand bond color, smell and taste molecules in considerable numbers which effect the quality of the wine. Then they use the filter machine.
Asaf Margalit
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