# White Wine Goes Cloudy Upon Chilling



## Boatboy24 (Jun 21, 2020)

Yesterday, I bottled my 2019 Virginia Viognier after filtering it w/ a 1micron filter. Brought a couple bottles over to my parents' today and left one w/ Dad and one with my sister. She asked if she could drink it tonight and I told her about bottle shock, but that I'd chill down a sacrificial bottle to test and let her know. It was wonderfully clear upon bottling, but clouded up after I chilled it. I'm a little upset I went through the trouble of filtering. Any thoughts on what would cause this? Granted, I did do a 'quick chill' - about 40 minutes in the freezer. The nose and flavor profile don't seem to be affected.


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## Boatboy24 (Jun 22, 2020)

No ideas? Hmm. I'm going to take another bottle and chill it 'normally' in the fridge to see if I can repeat the cloudiness. I've quick-chilled many a bottle in the freezer though and never had this happen.


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## stickman (Jun 22, 2020)

If you didn't cold stabilize before bottling then it is possible to be tartrates. It is also possible to be a protein haze if bentonite wasn't used before bottling.


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## Boatboy24 (Jun 22, 2020)

Thanks @stickman. Hadn't thought about protein haze. Would that be brought about from chilling? If I were to dump back into a carboy and add pectic enzyme, would that help?


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## cmason1957 (Jun 22, 2020)

Boatboy24 said:


> Thanks @stickman. Hadn't thought about protein haze. Would that be brought about from chilling? If I were to dump back into a carboy and add pectic enzyme, would that help?



Pectic enzyme won't help a protein haze. Bentonite might.


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## Boatboy24 (Jun 22, 2020)

Seems strange to me that the 'haze' doesn't appear until chilled. Is that normal w/ protein? 

@mainshipfred : you made wine from these same grapes. Any issues upon chilling?


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## cmason1957 (Jun 22, 2020)

It is also called a chill haze and can be cleared up with bentonite.


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## mainshipfred (Jun 23, 2020)

I have yet to open a bottle so I can't help right now. I can say in the bottle at 55 degrees the wine is clear. Not that it makes any difference but I didn't back sweetened it either. I'll open a bottle this evening.


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## montanarick (Jun 23, 2020)

have to agree with stickman and cmason


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## stickman (Jun 23, 2020)

Here's a research paper on the use of bentonite with Virginia wine noting the typical difficulty of protein stabilization.

"Protein instability is a widespread issue in Virginia white and Rosé wines. Bentonite is commonly used to improve protein stability, and nearly every manufacturer has one or several bentonite products for sale. The purpose of this experiment was to determine the range of differences among bentonite products. Each bentonite was tested for its ability to stabilize the same barrel-fermented Viognier wine in two rounds of benchtop heat tests.


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## joeswine (Jun 23, 2020)

If you allow the wine to come up to room temperature does it go away over a little time.
Then it's pectin in the wine crystizing ,time in the cold should drop it out.


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## Boatboy24 (Jun 23, 2020)

joeswine said:


> If you allow the wine to come up to room temperature does it go away over a little time.
> Then it's pectin in the wine crystizing ,time in the cold should drop it out.



I'll give that a try.


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## mainshipfred (Jun 24, 2020)

Boatboy24 said:


> Seems strange to me that the 'haze' doesn't appear until chilled. Is that normal w/ protein?
> 
> @mainshipfred : you made wine from these same grapes. Any issues upon chilling?



How cloudy was it? I opened a bottle yesterday and it might not be the clearest wine I have but certainly not what I would consider cloudy. 

On another note, my initial reaction was I wasn't crazy about it but I almost polished of the bottle when it normally takes me 2 1/2 to 3 days to finish a bottle of wine.


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## joeswine (Jun 24, 2020)

All's not lost


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## Boatboy24 (Jun 24, 2020)

mainshipfred said:


> How cloudy was it? I opened a bottle yesterday and it might not be the clearest wine I have but certainly not what I would consider cloudy.
> 
> On another note, my initial reaction was I wasn't crazy about it but I almost polished of the bottle when it normally takes me 2 1/2 to 3 days to finish a bottle of wine.



It's cloudy enough that it's really bothering me. The other bottle I put in the fridge hasn't settled, but is still cloudy. I enjoy drinking it, but would hesitate to give any away. I'm thinking about dumping 3 gallons back into a carboy and hitting with bentonite. To me, this wine is good enough that I'd like to share it, but would want to have some that is clear. FWIW, the Petite Manseng, also from VA grapes, has remained crystal clear after chilling.


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## joeswine (Jun 25, 2020)

Well there's always that, I've recleared before to be sure , remember it's your process you control it,it works for you.
I was watching a dvd last night about winemakers in bourdour france and they were drinking there young vintage straight out of the barrel talk about cloudy.
But that was just tasting


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## DizzyIzzy (Jun 25, 2020)

stickman said:


> If you didn't cold stabilize before bottling then it is possible to be tartrates. It is also possible to be a protein haze if bentonite wasn't used before bottling.


Stickman, how much Bentonite would you use, and would that be added to the secondary?............................Dizzy


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## stickman (Jun 25, 2020)

In my case, the few times I used bentonite were for Riesling and Gewürztraminer wines from Washington. I waited for fermentation to stop, the wine was racked SO2 added and allowed to settle for a couple of months, the bentonite was added at 2g/gal, everything was suspended and allowed to settle clear, then racked again. I'm not saying this is correct procedure for everyone, but this is what I did at the time. I think 2g/gal is a mid-range dose, but the actual amount needed is a mystery, and bench trials are always recommended. I've always been too lazy for full blown trials. In the end the wine was clear, I filtered at .2 micron nominal and back sweetened, and the wine has remained clear in bottles, but did drop tartrate crystals as I bulk stored the wine at 58F and never really cold stabilized.


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## joeswine (Jun 25, 2020)

*Bentonite* in the beginning as always, about a teaspoon in warm water, not in the secondary wait till all chems have been add then process with *sparkoloid *or *super kleer. #15 @19 are the same wine.*


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## cmason1957 (Jun 25, 2020)

I'm with Joe here, with all my wines (Kits, from grapes, fruit) I add about 1-2 heaping teaspoons to the wine. Someone asked why add something that is normally added in the clearing phase at the start. If you mix it well, and I almost always put mine in a blender with lots of water and give it a good whirl, until the bentonite is well integrated. It starts the clearing process, removing excess proteins, in the primary. 

These words come from the morewinemaking site on the page selling bentonite: "When making a wine kit from concentrate you will often add the bentonite on the first day. This happens for a few reasons. It is used as a nucleation sites for the removal of CO2. Additionally, the bentonite is moved all around the wine by the CO2 and thus less can be used more efficiently in a shorter time period. "


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## joeswine (Jun 25, 2020)

It also allows the yeast that settles out a place to go then, re release back into the process.
It's a win,win.


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## Johnd (Jun 25, 2020)

I agree with @joeswine and @cmason1957 on the timing, bentonite is much more effective in primary fermentation, and it takes a much smaller dose in primary to accomplish the goal.


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## Boatboy24 (Jun 25, 2020)

Thanks all. I've previously only used bentonite in kits and on my peach wine. Lesson learned. That's what's great about this hobby - always something you can learn.

I just dumped 3 gallons back into a carboy and am about to add some bentonite. Fingers crossed it works. If not, I've got some pretty nice Viognier that will just be cloudy when chilled.


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## stickman (Jun 25, 2020)

Depending on your philosophy you can use bentonite at any time, no argument here. That's the reason I indicated that the late use of bentonite was just what I did at the time. I think the answer is, as always, it depends on the wine maker you talk to, some argue only using bentonite if needed, which means to use bentonite up front you would have to know from experience that proteins were going to be a problem later. Wine makers that prefer "less is more", will run heat stability tests on their wines to determine which ones will need bentonite treatment, and treat only those that need it. Kits are very clean and a different story, juice from grapes settled naturally has adequate particulate for nucleation without bentonite. Bentonite will strip nutrients at the juice stage, so with juice from grapes, proper nutrient addition after bentonite should be considered.


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## mainshipfred (Jun 25, 2020)

Boatboy24 said:


> Thanks all. I've previously only used bentonite in kits and on my peach wine. Lesson learned. That's what's great about this hobby - always something you can learn.
> 
> I just dumped 3 gallons back into a carboy and am about to add some bentonite. Fingers crossed it works. If not, I've got some pretty nice Viognier that will just be cloudy when chilled.



I hope it works as well. I just don't understand why yours is cloudy and mine is not being from the same grapes. Just so everyone knows in case it makes a difference. The timing for getting these grapes didn't work out for us to crush them ourselves. The winery crushed, pressed and added enzymes them put the juice in a stainless steel tank for some reason without adding yeast. We got pretty clean juice out of the tank. After typing this is makes it even more confusing why they turned out so different.


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## Boatboy24 (Jun 25, 2020)

mainshipfred said:


> I hope it works as well. I just don't understand why yours is cloudy and mine is not being from the same grapes. Just so everyone knows in case it makes a difference. The timing for getting these grapes didn't work out for us to crush them ourselves. The winery crushed, pressed and added enzymes them put the juice in a stainless steel tank for some reason without adding yeast. We got pretty clean juice out of the tank. After typing this is makes it even more confusing why they turned out so different.



We had rice hulls in there too, as I remember. Was nice only having to press though (or did we only press the Petite Manseng?). Regardless of the outcome, the wine smells and tastes good, and I'm happy with that. If we can do it again this year, I definitely will - will just tweak the process a bit based on what I've learned.


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## stickman (Jun 25, 2020)

You would have to review all of the steps in the process to see what differences exist between yours and his.


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## Boatboy24 (Jun 25, 2020)

stickman said:


> You would have to review all of the steps in the process to see what differences exist between yours and his.



We definitely took different approaches. Fred's was cool fermented, mine at ambient temps. His got some oak mine didn't. I don't recall exactly, but I think we used the same yeast. Beyond that, I'll have to go to my notes, which were sketchy for last fall.


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## Boatboy24 (Jul 20, 2020)

Well, it appears the bentonite treatment worked. I racked off the bentonite, filtered and bottled yesterday. Chilled a bottle overnight and it's still crystal clear. Thanks for the tips, all! I'll definitely be adding bentonite up front the next time.


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