Weinstein - wine diamonds / stones

I have noticed recently that more and more of my more recent wine purchases have bottles that seem to have sand in them. When I pour the last glas I can have quite a few "crystals" that come into my glass. In german they call them Wein Steins. I am lazy today and tried a cursory search on google, but the use of crystal and wine seems to pull up wine glasses. Are they a sign of a good wine? A bad wine? or no real meaning?

I looked up in Leo and the translation is cream of tartar. I then searched the wiki and found that grapes have a high concentration of tartaric acid. Are these crystals of tartaric acid? Or cream of tartar? Does it mean a poor wine?

it's weinstein and it doesn't mean much about the quality of your wine. more here: Cream of tartar - for baking

Wine diamonds (aren't forever) - winemonger.com

Yeah I can second Bob's opinion - most ppl think it's a sign of bad quality, but my uncle-in-law (?) has a vinyard and says it's nothing bad at all, in fact can be a good thing.

Yum.. Crunchy wine, my fav.

Indeed it is. wifey says it is a common misconception from a lot of wine snobs out there. They pay 50 Euros for a bottle of wine and complain about the bits in the glass, trying to take it back by saying it is orff.

Same goes for Red Wine when you get "bits" at the bottom of the glass when you finish drinking. Nothing wrong at all.

Also check the bottle to see if it is unfiltered or not.

you know it's a good bottle when it's got bits in!! luvverly.

Indeed, although not always. It has to be a decent colour as well though. MiniMal was trying to fob off bottles of Chablis with "bits" in it. Only problem was that a white wine should not be orange with black bits in it. I pointed this out to the friendly salesman (I had just taken back a bottle of Chablis that was off) and he agreed it was not good. Went back three days later and the same bottles were up on the shelf.

However. Good little tip this. Chablis from Minimal - 6.99 Euros and a very nice everyday wine for you. Not as complex as the more expensive bottles but certainly a good quality for the price.

yeeees, orange chablis isn't too pleasant but certainly wakes you up in the morning

my tip for the day, jj mcwilliams aussie cab shiraz and merlot i think, 4.79 or summat from edeka. glug away!!

The cab shiraz was quite pleasant but was not overly impressed by the Merlot. We had JJ WcWilliams wines at a tasting a while back and it was quite well received IIRC

yup, i tend to go for the cab shaz and now the bbq season is upon us, it'll feature regularily in/on our garden.

mmm, bbq, roll on the weekend.

This is an old thread but I missed it. Crawlie threw in my two bits but I'll explain more.

The crystal/glass/sand in the bottom of the glass are Tartartic Acid, a naturally forming acid in grapes. It accounts for the vast majority of acid in grapes. The acid can be at barely soluble levels in many wines. Therefore when the wine is chilled the acid drops out of solution forming crystals, ie putting the wine in your fridge. Since consumers do not like seeing the crystals in their glasses we cold stabilize most white wines. This involves adding sodium bicarbonate (to encourage crystalization) to the wine and dropping the temperature for a day or so. Then the wine is filtered. The acid level is drop to a point that the wine is cold stable, nothing will drop out of solution when it's chilled. The problems is that it also effects then flavor and aroma. You loose the complex delicate aromas and fruity flavors to an extent. We don't cold stabalize red wines because chilling them to the low temps white wines are kept at is uncommon. Plus because the bottle isn't clear you can't see them as easily as in white wines.

The comments in post 4 that EB cut and pasted are referring to crystals that form on the cork of an old red wine. The wine has to be considerable old to see this and you rarely do see it. The crystals formed in white wine when they are chilled are not an indication of readiness to drink.

But Winegirl is there a difference when you have a bit of weinstein compared to a lot? I had one bottle last week which seemed that I could start to build a sand castle from it at least 3 grams of weinstein were in there.

I got a pile of this stuff from a bottle last night. Couldn't figure out how a spoonful of sugary crap got into my mouth when I took a drink from my glass.

Gosh darn it Toytown, you have an answer for everything. Now, about that other black sock...

...it must have run away with mine.

It is good for you. It builds character apparently. Or so my Mother says

One tip that i always use is not to empty the bottle totally. When you pour the last glass, don't up-end the (red wine) bottle, leave it horizontal and the sediment will settle where the bottle begins to narrow forming the bottle neck.