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On 26 Jan 2004 14:13:11 GMT, (LG1111) wrote:

>Last year, I froze some fresh juice and reserved it to add back to completed
>wine to give a higher sugar content. In spite of all of my efforts at
>filtering and sulfiting, it still re-fermented in the bottle. The problem with
>most readily available filters is that they don't take out ALL of the
>yeast....just enough to fool you.

I know of several wineries in the Finger Lakes of NY that cold
stabilize and then sterile filter their late harvest wines to stop the
fermentation. The process does work, if the filter is fine enough.

How fine is that? Darned if I know -- I don't use a filter. :-)
Seriously, if I recall correctly a filter that prevents anything
greater than 5 microns (???) from passing is required. And the
problem with the fine filters is that they also strip color and
flavor.

On the few occasions that I sweeten a wine at bottling time, I add a
fining agent, cold stabilize for a week, rack before it warms up, and
then add sorbate to prevent a renewed fermentation.

Bryan