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A Guide to Wine Faults – Tartrate Crystals
Tartrate Crystals [Tar-trate] I’ve worked in restaurants my whole life and have encountered tartrates quite a bit. Before a wine is bottled to be sold, wineries usually employ a procedure called cold stabilization (which brings the wine down to a near freezing temperature) in order to remove these “wine diamonds” as they’re sometimes more fondly called. It’s worth noting that Potassium Bitartrate (to give tartrates their full name) is a natural byproduct of the…
Matt Freeman
Prior to working at http://www.ewoodart.com, I was toasting wine barrels for a cooperage. Many of our customers had strong preferences on the type of oak and toast level. American oak is known for a strong oak taste in the wine. It hits the wine hard with the oak and can sometimes “over oak” your wine. Sometimes that may be what you want, but sometimes you may want more vanilla tannins and possibly a french oak would be better.