This is tricky. As you siphon wine to try and get the last bit of clear wine inevitably the sediment gets stirred up due to the suction. I’ve tied a few different things to get as much liquid as I can but there will always be some left in the bottom.

One tactic is to tilt the carboy slightly as it is clearing so that the sediment collects on one side. I’ve propped the carboy on a small book or you can use a wedge as others have done to keep the carboy tilted. Of course you need to be careful as the carboy will be less stable, especially when bottling.

For me, I just look at the lost wine as the price to pay to get clearer wine in the other bottles. Beyond that you could filter the wine. They’re a bit pricey compared to the cost of wine kits and most filters do leak some so I’m not sure you’d save the wine this way either.

One thing I just thought of is siphoning the cloudy wine into another bottle or 1/2 gallon jug with an airlock. Let it settle out again and try to get one last bottle that way.

I wish I had a better method for you and I’ll keep thinking on it but to date I haven’t come up with a good solution. This makes 1 gallon fruit wine batches somewhat of a hassle because you lose about 20% of your wine to the sediment in the jug. In larger volumes these losses are much less noticeable.

I hope this help! -Matt

Hi Kandi,

This is a common problem that wine makers (even experienced ones) run into. I addressed this very topic on Episode 1 of the podcast if you’re interested in listening: http://winemakersacademy.org/red-white-wines-easier-wma001/

In short you really only have two options. First you could uncork all the wine and pour it into a fermentation bucket where you then add your campden tablet. Alternatively you could enjoy a reduced sulfite wine.

If you go for the first option the life of your wine may be shortened due to oxygen exposure. The second option reduces the life of the wine because it is less stable against the aging affects of oxygen it’s already been exposed to.

Either way I think you would need to drink this wine within six months to a year. Personally I would not bother adding it if both courses of action lead to the same outcome.

I hope this helps Kandi!

-Matt