Fining and Filtering Your Favorite Whites
There is a lot that happens behind the cellar doors when it comes to crafting exceptional wines; it’s more than fermenting grapes and pouring it into bottles. It’s a delicate and intricate journey that transforms the fruit we’ve nurtured through the growing season into the wine you know and love. For those who like a crisp, clean glass of white wine, a lot must happen to ensure that every sip is a true reflection of the vineyard’s character. Fining and filtering are important steps that give your favorite whites their clarity, stability, and preserve their signature taste.
Fining for Clarity
Before our whites can reach their final bottling stage, they must first undergo fining and filtering. These are key steps, and something we do exclusively with our white wines, to ensure they achieve that beautiful crystal-clear appearance. We age our white wines on their lees – the dead yeast and proteins from fermentation – and fining helps remove these remnants, giving the wine a clean finish while preserving its natural characteristics.
To begin, we rack the wine, which removes a large portion of the excess material. This is followed by the addition of Bentonite, a naturally occurring volcanic ash clay. Bentonite binds with the particles that cause cloudiness, such as leftover lees, pulling them down to settle in the bottom of the tank. The result is a cleaner, clearer wine that’s ready for the next step in the refining process. Like so much else in winemaking, getting the balance just right is as much an art as it is science. Too much Bentonite and you risk stripping the wine’s distinct aromas and flavors, which is where our winemaking team’s exceptional expertise and experience is so crucial.
Filtering: a Refined Touch
After fining, the next step is filtering, and the magic of crossflow filtration—think of it as a highly efficient purification system for the wine. Crossflow filtration passes the wine through a membrane under pressure, removing any micro-particles that remain after fining and racking. The best part? It does all of this while preserving the wine’s unique flavors and aromas, something that traditional filtration can sometimes compromise.
This method is ideal for our whites because it ensures that the wine’s purity and vibrant character are maintained, making it a perfect balance between cleanliness and expression. At EFESTĒ, we’re committed to maintaining as much of the wine’s vineyard influence as possible, so minimal intervention is key. Filtering helps us strike that perfect harmony, ensuring the wine’s essence shines through in every bottle.
Time to Bottle!
The fining and filtering process is quite technical, but the most rewarding part of the journey is when it all comes together. After months, and sometimes years, of hard work, our winemaking team gets to watch their efforts come to fruition as they fill bottles. It’s a celebration of everything that has gone into crafting each wine, knowing that the next chapter of the journey involves someone else—you—experiencing the fruits of their labor.
This week, we’re excited to be bottling four wines: 2024 Adrienne Chenin Blanc, 2024 Estate Rosé, 2024 Feral Sauvignon Blanc, and 2023 Lola Chardonnay. Each of these wines represents the culmination of our winemaking efforts and minimal intervention philosophy, and we can’t wait for you to taste these wines in the very near future!
So, next time you enjoy a glass of your favorite EFESTĒ white, remember that it’s not just the grapes that make it exceptional. Every bottle tells a story of passion, patience, and precision, and we’re proud to be able to share that with you.
