What difference does it make to filter a wine? After grape juice undergoes fermentation, wine is often filtered both to take out the final, infinitesimally small yeast particles or bacteria that may make a wine unstable (and lead to off-putting aromas) and to enhance the wine’s luster. Some importers, however, have championed unfiltered wines (e.g., Kermit Lynch, Joe Dressner, and now many natural wine importers) because they believe that filtering extracts not just particulates, but flavor. They contend that wines made cleanly, with balance of pH and acidity, will be stable. In that case, filtering extracts compounds whose contributions to the final wine are important to that wine’s identity.
