Trasegar
From Eating Asturias, the Encyclopedia of Asturian Gastronomy
Trasegar is the process of racking an alcoholic beverage. Also known as Soutirage, fining, or filtering. This is the process of moving an alcoholic beverage (wine, beer, cider, etc..) from one container to another using gravity instead of pumping.
Siphoning the wine, beer, or cider off of the lees (in the case of wine), trub (in the case of beer), or borras/la madre (in the case of cider) allows clarification and aids in stabilization of the beverage. Allowing wine to age on the lees can allow it to develop off tastes.
In recent years, it has become popular among Asturian cider makers to release their first barrels of the year sin trasegar, unfiltered and direct from the fermentation barrels with no intermediate fining step.
