The wine has fermented out, been racked, and is patiently aging in the basement. The winemaker, on the other hand, is not so patient. It isn’t brilliantly clear, but its flavor and aroma he’s interested in, so he bottles. The trouble with this approach is that a wine that isn’t clear has something in suspension, and it’s not going to stop settling just because a cork went into the bottle and a nice label got glued to the side.
What happens when you bottle too soon?
What sorts of things might settle out? It might be something harmless, like cream of tartar. It might be fruit solids. In the case of my 2006 Apple Wine it was yeast. I rushed it into bottles in December 2006, just two months after fermentation began. It was still and dry when I bottled, so there was never a question of fermentation pressurizing the bottles. But yeast went dormant in the bottles, settled out, and began to decay.
Good looking wine: More than just a pretty face
That doesn’t make for good flavor, which is why the bottle I opened last night failed to deliver on the promise I saw in it early on. I usually work to make clear wine because I appreciate how it looks in the glass, but I learned last night that lack of clarity can be more than an aesthetic problem.