Electrodialysis
In addition to cold stabilization, electrodialysis is another way winemakers can remove tartrate crystals. Electrodialysis uses the Selective Tartrate Removal System, or STARS.
Using Electrodialysis to Lower Acidity in Wine
The Eurodia Industrie and the French National Agronomic Research Institute developed electrodialysis in the 1990s. The STARS system involves passing the wine through two different filtering membranes just before bottling.
One filters out tartrates, and the other filters out calcium and potassium. Water that carries an electrical charge is on the other side of each membrane, and attracts the tartrates. The water and the excessive tartrates can then be removed, leaving the clarified wine behind.
Electrodialysis holds a lot of promise because it is much more energy efficient than cold stabilization. On average, it consumes less than one-fifth the energy that refrigeration for cold stabilization requires.
The technology is still quite new, and is not employed by many wineries. Their numbers are growing though. Fetzer Vineyard is a proponent of electrodialysis, adding to their eco-friendly reputation.
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