We are bottling a batch of American Pink Catawba from last season. We are also getting a batch of Oskyfizzante® Cranberry carbonated and ready for bottling. And, we will be cold stabilizing Sweet Roxie Red®.
One of the big events of each fall is the final steps we take to get our first wine of the season into the bottle. That wine is, of course, our Iowa Nouveau. Iowa Nouveau is a very fresh, fruity red wine with just a hint of sweetness. It is made from a blend of Marquette and Foch. This week, we will begin cold stabilizing this wine. That means that we will chill this wine down to about 25°F and then add some Cream of Tartar. (You read that right. We use Cream of Tartar just like you’d use in the kitchen except that we purchase it 100 pounds at a time.) As the Cream of Tartar settles in the tank of cold wine, it is electrically charged so that it attracts naturally occurring tartrates in the wine and while bound together, they slowly settle to the bottom of the tank. This will take 2–3 weeks. If we don’t remove the tartrates, then our customers will find tartaric acid crystals in the bottom of their glasses. There is nothing wrong with consuming them, but most of us really don’t want to chew our wine! Tassel Ridge Winery cold stabilizes all of its wine but in spite of our effort, if the bottle is put in the fridge for a few days before serving, sometimes the wine will throw tartrates anyhow.
