Diamond in the Wine
Since we have opened our winery we have had a lot of different questions about our wine, the most
common, what is that sediment at the bottom of my glass and why is it there?
The answer is tartrates, also known as “wine diamonds.” Did we grab your attention? These tartrates
are also known as cream of tartar. They form naturally as potassium and tartaric acid, which is in wine,
bond to form a crystal
So why don’t you get these beautiful wine diamonds in your bottle of Barefoot or other major wine
brand?
Those mass production wine companies were getting complaints about there being “small shards of
glass,” or “flawed wine” so instead of coming out and educating their consumers they took to doing
what they could to make sure there are no “flaws” to their wine. This process is extremely costly and not energy efficient, the wine is put into football sized stadium tanks and chilled to 30 degrees for days until all of these diamonds form and sink to the bottom, then the wine in removed and the diamonds are left at the bottom of the barrel.
This process does not improve the taste of the wine and some even believe that taking out these
beautiful diamonds negatively affects the wines “mouthfeel.”
Here at Bishops Estate we believe in quality wine with amazing flavor and smell, we also believe in the
natural process of making wine and will not be looking into ridding our wine of these beautiful
diamonds!
