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What are Those Shiny Crystals on the Cork?
December 7, 2010 by David
Filed under Wine Words
Sugar? Glass shards (eek!)? We’ll, they’re the completely natural and harmless result of tartaric acid hooking up with potassium, especially when the wine gets cold (wouldn’t you?). We call them tartrate crystals, AKA potassium bitartrate, AKA cream of tartar, AKA wine diamonds!
You’ll see tartrates shining on many a white wine cork. And, when you visit a winery, sometimes you can see them shining inside an empty barrel. There’s a winemaking technique called cold stabilization that can be used to remove them. However, if your fridge is really cold and the wine is in there for several days or weeks the wine may throw tartrates even if it was stabilized at the winery.
When they’re in the wine rather than on the cork, it’s perfectly fine to drink them. But, if you don’t want to, just stand the bottle up for a few hours so the crystals settle to the bottom and decant the wine off of them or run it through a strainer. But, next time you’re entertaining and your guests notice tartrates shining on the cork when you remove it, you can tell them that it must be a gem of a wine – it has wine diamonds! More wine terms
