Current state of knowledge and challenges in wine clarification

Clarity in wine is an essential quality attribute that is recognised and valued by consumers. Despite advances made in recent times to improve technological aspects of clarification processes, the inherent compositional variability of wine still affects these processes. This paper reviews the complex interactions of wine constituents, for example protein, polysaccharides and phenolic substances, and the physical chemistry and current knowledge relating to wine clarification. Furthermore, it discusses potential areas of fundamental research into the mechanisms and interactions that lead to successful clarification that are required to improve the clarification process and may lead to increased process capacity and wine quality.