Wine Diamonds...how do you..

[bein_bein]

Get them to form?? I did some research and found that these are indicators of wines that have NOT been cold stabilized, and grapes that have increased 'hang time' before they were picked. I know that here in America people are not accustomed to seeing them, but in Europe they are indicators of a well made wine.I'm trying to figure out exactly when/how these crystals form and if there is a way to promote their natural occurrence ( i.e. cold storage after bottling) and if they can/do exist in more than just grape based wines?? I have a concord wine we made that have these in them and the wine is great! As I understand it the diamonds actually improve the taste of the wine by naturally reducing some of the acidity...any ideas from the pros out there?

 

[Midwest Vintner]

you already named it. it's more smooth due to less acid, which is the "snow" you see. you can get any wine to do it when it has extra of a certain acid (not sure which), but put the wine in 40-45 F temps for a week or two. did so for me with 2 bottles that i did like that. going to do more this way to see how it affects different wines. the eldeberry tasted awesome, although it had ~10 lbs per gal of fruit! we have a 5 year old pear wine that's been in the refridge in a colder spot for 3 weeks. has less "snow" than the eldeberry, but there is some.

 

[Wade E]

The wine has to have excess Tartaric acid in it and it can be seeded to fall out by actually adding more tartaric acid and then cold stabilized. If there is notenough it wone gather up and settle out so sometimes help is needed by seeding it.

 

[Runningwolf]

I had this appear in my Rhubarb wine. I had a few bottles in the wine cooler for a few weeks. Kinda freaked me out when I went to serve it to some guests and I saw the them floating in the bottom of the bottle. The wine was absolutely awesome tasting! Of coarse I was making a post on here that nite and was assured by Wade all was well and it was actually a sign of a high quality juice I started out with.

 

[bein_bein]

Thanks guys!! As always very helpful and informative!!

 

[Wade E]

The only kit I ever seen this in was a RJS En Primeur Amarone but thats the pnly EP Ive done so far, that tells you have have used very good juice, not that its just high in tartaric.

 

[ffemt128]

Sorry for digging up an old thread. I recenly had this occur with the last batch of Apple I made. When it was bottled it was crystal clear. I place the case in the basement where temps are around 45-50 at the time of bottling. At bottling the wine had an acidic tinge to it giving a little bite.

I recently took a bottle of this to the W.Pa picnic and Runningwolf took this bottle home with him. I was leary of taking it because I noticed the sediment in the bottle but I did anyway. (I actually opened all bottles a while ago and put back into carboy so I could re-bottle with out the sediment) I told Dan about this and he advised me it looked like "wine diamonds". I tasted the apple yesterday and I have to say, it smoothed out an incredible amount.

Very happy with the way it turned out.

Would be interested in hearing more about this phenomenom....

 

[Sacalait]

Adding potassium bicarbonate along with a little cream of tartar will cause the tartaric acid to fall out when placed in a 35F-40F environment for a week or so. It's best to rack off the acid crystals as some will go back into solution when it warms up.