2005 Vidal Icewine: Fining with Sparkaloid
I've decided to do two rounds of fining on the Viday Icewine—the first with Sparkaloid (a positively charged ion) and the second with Bentonite (a negatively charged ion). Hopefully this will clarify the wine greatly, as it's fairly cloudy right now.
I was planning on just doing the Bentonite, but Mary at Funk Wines in Jordan Station advised me to give the Sparkaloid a whirl as well, since it's fairly gentle on wine flavours and at the least won't hurt. Sounds good to me.
So yesterday I racked the icewine, which removed a fair amount of sediment from the bottom. The wine is now a think straw-yellow colour in the glass, and a thick reddish whisky-colour in the carboy.
After racking, I mixed 1/2 a cup of water with 3 teaspoons of Sparkaloid (that's 1 teaspoon/gallon, and I have 11 litres, which is ~3 gallons) and brought them to a boil on the stove. I let it boil for 15 minutes, then mixed it right into the carboy of wine while still fairly warm (but not boiling hot.). I then vigourously shook the carboy to evently distribute the mixture.