How-to Reuse your Üllo Selective Sulfite Capture™ Filters

We know it’s not always practical to finish a bottle of wine in one evening. We also know that filters are precious commodities! We have found that, when stored properly, a partially used filter can be re-used the next day on the same bottle of wine, with little loss of efficacy. Rinsing and refrigerating the filter can help to maintain its reactivity, so please follow the steps below before attempting to reuse a filter.

For best results, we still recommend using a new Selective Sulfite Capture™ filter after three hours since its first use. This is because the surface of the filter is reactive and becomes “activated” when it gets wet with wine. During purification, the activated filter weakly interacts with the tannins in wine through a process called non-specific adsorption. Rinsing the filter helps to keep the filter active, for the same reason that washing a red wine stain before it dries keeps the stain from setting in.

We’ve received some questions about how the filter works and what it’s made of. The filter is made from a food-grade, macroporous acrylic polymer. When activated, it captures free sulfites in wine by a reaction called covalent attachment. The beauty of this chemistry is that the reaction is highly selective for the most reactive components of wine, the sulfites, and no unintended “products” are introduced into the wine during purification. That is, the filter removes only the sulfites without adding anything back in. That’s the magic of Selective Sulfite Capture™ and what sets Üllo apart in wine purification. It’s why we invented the term!