Tartrate Stabilization Agents

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While completely natural and harmless and tasteless, precipitates of tartrate cyrstals in bottles of wine can create a potential consumer quality, safety, and aesthetic perception issue with the wine.  Cold Stabilization, cooling the wine before bottling to a low temperature just above freezing where tartrates become  insoluble and precipitate out, is the most reliable method to prevent tartrate preciptation in the bottled wine, but this requires refrigeration quipment and is also very energy costly.  Tartrate Stabilization Agents are not a full substitute for cold stabilization but they can help reduce and prevent tartrate precipitation in bottled wines.  

 

See a very good article from Purdue University Ag Extension on Cold Stabilizaton and the chemistry of tartrate precipitation.