Filtering your port-is it porticide?

[Bill Crann]

I've tried coffee filters (white & unbleached) and to me it takes something away flavor wise. I wouldn't say it ruins the port, but it damages the flavor profile a bit.
The last 4 or 5 years I've been firmly anchored at the other extreme. I'm careful to maintain a constant flow into the decanter to minimize stirring up the sediment, but when I get to the bottom of the bottle, I pour the last sip or so, including the sediment that comes with it into a port glass. I put the decanter back into the cellar and I just set the small glass aside and let it settle out for about 20 minutes, and then I purse my lips and slowly just suck the juice off the lees. This gives me a taste of the port fresh out of the bottle, more or less, and frankly with practice you won't drink hardly any sediment, which wouldn't hurt you anyway. Hardly waste a drop and you get the full flavor.

Bill

[Andy Velebil]

I must admit, as much as possible now I don't use any type of filter. If you can stand a bottle up and prep it (take the foil off, clean the top, etc) a day or two before hand, there is no need for a filter. I put a small cup next to the decanter so when I get near the end I pour into the small cup until a touch of sedmient comes out. I use this for the "first taste" to get a feel for the Port when first decanted; check to see if its corked, bad, etc. Of course that is only for those really dark or black bottles where I can't see in when decanting. The lighter colored ones are easy to see when the sediment is about to come out.

But if I am unable to stand a bottle up a couple of days before hand so the sediment settles to the bottom, then I use unbleached cheese cloth as a filter. This seems to work the best for me.

[Felix Warners]

I would never use anything to filter my VP, filtering removes taste and especially it changes the mouthfeel. Unfiltered wine is the way to go, so why ruin it yourself?
A bit of sediment wont kill you, it just shows wine lives and that is the whole beauty of the product. Decanting should be sufficient imho.

[Shawn Denkler]

I strongly disagree with Robert Parker on many things. But one thing I do agree on is that filtering wine will strip it of flavor. This is common knowledge in the wine industry and winemakers that choose to filter do it as a necessary evil. Most of the public wants to drink a sparkling clear wine and thus filtration is necessary.

White paper uses bleach to make it white and other strong chemicals. A quality brand of coffee filter should be better. Cheesecloth is made from cotton which is naturally white and does not use strong chemicals in its manufacturing process. It is made to be food grade. So I would recommend cheesecloth if you filter your port.

But both coffee filters and cheesecloth are still filtering your port and stripping it of some flavor. I got my degree in chemistry, but do not think people of the forum wish to get into the detailed chemistry of what is happening. But both coffee filters and cheesecloth are closely related to the cellulose filter pads used in the wine industry.

I use cheesecloth mostly when I have fragments of an old cork to remove before serving. Since cheesecloth is fairly porous I think any stripping of flavor is minimal. I use coffee filters to filter the last ounce left in the bottle after decanting. This ounce would be thrown out anyway, so if the flavor isn't as good it is still better than not having it at all.

A high quality stainless steel or gold fine mesh filter is the best solution to filtering your port since no flavor will be stripped out.

[Moses Botbol]

Who’s got time for a candle?

I just double up on cheese cloth of muslin and pour the port through with a funnel. Done... If I did not use the tongs, I rinse the bottle out and pour back in or leave in a decanter if I did tong the bottle.

I have a 500 & 375 ml bottles to use for the remainder if it more than a one sitting bottle.

[Roy Hersh]

I have done several experiments over the years, two of them with a panel to see the perceptions of very fine palates, one a MS at a Washington DC restaurant when I did this (back in 1993) while living in the area.

My conclusions based on my own experience and 6-person tasting panel tests where that statistically speaking, there was no relevant difference between the samples using cheesecloth vs. free pouring. Here was the procedure:

Each from a bottle of 1970 Taylor, (used in both panel experiements a couple of weeks apart with different friends from ITB) the bottle was free poured into glasses. The first 1.5 ounce pour with poured free with minimal sediment. The second half of the bottle was filtered through cheesecloth to catch all the sediment. The panel had noticed virtually no difference between the two glasses before them. There was one gent who felt the filtered VP was better, but he could not elaborate why. The pours took place before they had entered the room so the experiment was blind to them as was the VP itself.

Perception is everything!

[simon Lisle]

If I need to I use unbleached teabag paper and determine the layers on the age.

[*skangeodonolyea]

A few questions on the quote below:

My personal method of choice is to take a metal Port funnel and line it with a double layer of cotton cheese cloth...... The combination of the cheese cloth and meshed metal screen will catch the vast majority of the sediment. Unless a really old VP, I normally rinse the bottle once pouring into decanter and then decant back from decanter to bottle through a rinsed and ratcheted dry, cheesecloth. I then just gently pour back into the decanter for it to open up now that just about all of the sediment has been removed. This is my process and I am sticking to it.

1) Does it matter whether I use a stainless steel or silver plate funnel?

2) When you do the first decanting through the cheesecloth, do you rinse and ratchet it dry? Ie, is the rinsing to get the sediment out or clean chemicals from the brand new cheesecloth?

3) Presumably, if it is not totally dry, water gets into the port. Does this bother you?

4) So to clarify, you decant into a big airy decanter from the bottle, wash the bottle, decant back into bottle, then decant back into big decanter?