It is well to remember that there are five reasons for drinking:
the arrival of a friend; one’s present or future thirst; the excellence
of the wine; or any other reason.  – Latin Saying

Today I wanted to talk a little about fining wines.  Last time I wrote about blending and the use of barrels.  Wine is aged in barrel for approximately eighteen months.  This softens the tannins, among other things.  However, it often occurs that the tannins are still not where we want them to be when we are ready to bottle

In wine production trials are very important.  Before we do anything on a large scale, we test the process on each lot of wine on a small scale in the laboratory.  We also try to make the trial as similar to the process used in the cellar as possible. 

In red wines we sometimes find a wine component that has a bit too much astringency. Therefore we use fresh egg whites from locally grown organic farms, to fine or polish the wine.  The egg whites contain albumin and globular proteins, which form hydrogen bonds with astringent tannins in the wine.  Hydrogen bonding is a weak chemical interaction, which is why this is a gentle process.  Most proteins in the wine do not interact with the egg whites.  The egg white/tannin composite, fall out of solution to the bottom of the tank.  After the wine has had time to settle, we rack the wine and the resulting wine is just as aromatic and complex as before the fining with less astringent tannins.