Diamonds are forever...

The formation of crystals (aka wine diamonds) in bottled wine can confuse your ordinary customer. Is this glass, is this a problem, they might say. No it is not ! Far from it. There has been much written on the subject of wine crystal formation for the time surely to have come where the wine buying public can accept these as a positive rather than negative sign.

Cold stabilising a wine (and therefore preventing crystal formation) is nothing more than a very expensive way to enhance the cosmetic appeal of a bottle of wine for the uninformed wine buyer. That money would be better off spent on consumer education.

Not to mention that wineries like ourselves who are trying to produce a high quality, hand crafted and natural product would like nothing better than to dispense with such an intervention.

Terry Thiese, in his annual catalogue has written a good piece, called The Question of Tartrates, on this.

Now and again we get a pick-up request due to tartrates in the bottle. When I was starting out some 30 years ago, every grower’s pricelist had a disclaimer to the effect that tartrates are a naturally occurring substance and no cause for refund or return. I wish we all could do the same.

After all, haven’t we been taught to prize Vin non filtré? Don’t we feel great looking at all that muddy goop in the base of a red-wine bottle? Yet two threads of potassium bitartrate in a bottle of white wine and people start returning bottles. It defies reason.

A retailer I know had a case of wine, seven bottles of which were throwing tartrates. He put these alongside the “clean” ones and charged a Dollar more for them! “Special unfiltered cuvee!” I believe he wrote. All seven of those bottles sold before the first clean one was bought.

At worst tartrates are entirely benign. At best they’re an active sign of superior quality, because potassium bitartrate won’t precipitate without a lot of ripe tartaric acid in the wine, the acid from mature fruit. Yes, you can eliminate tartrates before bottling by cold-stabilizing, but some growers dislike what they feel (with justification) is an unnecessary handling that can sap a wine’s vitality.

Don’t get me wrong; we’re not urging growers to encourage tartrate formation in bottle. In fact we’re not discussing it AT ALL. Nor should we! Nor should you. If you buy a wine with tartrates from me (or anyone else) you have my blessing to hang a sign… WINE DIAMONDS: A SIGN OF SUPERIOR QUALITY!