How Wine is Made

The finishing process involves several critical components. First, the fining and filtering of the wine (collectively referred to as "clarification") removes the vast majority of the unwanted particulates still residing in the wine. Often egg whites are used in the fining phase to bind up tiny floaters in the wine and weigh them down so that they end up on the bottom of the barrel and can be separated from the wine. Filtration is the process of removing bigger solids like dead yeast cells and other particles, so that the wine is no longer cloudy, but bright and clear, as a consumer would expect.