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Detannating Wine

A process to remove tannins from wine using gelatin and ferric chloride.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Wine and gelatin work together. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 176 recipes. Both carry maltol, which smells caramel, sweet. The science ↓

Detannating Wine

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Add the gelatin to the wine.

  2. Agitate occasionally for 24 to 48 hours.

  3. Ensure the process is done in a cold environment to prevent gelatin from dissolving.

  4. Continue until a small portion of the wine mixed with a few drops of ferric chloride solution shows no darkening of color.

  5. Filter the wine.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Wine + gelatintop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together176 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Wine
The material being treated; its tannins are what the gelatin removes.
Gelatin
Binds to tannins so they form particles that settle out and can be filtered away.

The step that matters

Keep the wine cold while the gelatin works. Gelatin dissolves in warm liquid, which would stop it from binding tannins and settling them out. A cold environment keeps the gelatin solid enough to do its job.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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