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From the vine to your glass |
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Grapes have to follow a long and demanding process...
it is only after a series of careful manipulations through the years that the wine will be ready for your glass. |
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The most important part of the winemaking process is fermentation: yeasts will feed on sugar in the grape juice. They transform this sugar into alcohol. Side effects of this transformation are production of carbon dioxide and heat. That will change grape juice into wine.
The pulp of grape berries is white, no matter if the color of the skin is red or white. So how come it can produce red wine ? The color of red and rosé wines is obtained by soaking the grape skins in the fermenting juice. If the skins are removed at an early stage, there is little or no color. That is why some white wines are called « white of black » because they come from black grapes but are actually white. This is how rose wines will be made.
White wines have to be treated with more care than reds wines, since the problem of oxidation of the grapes is more real. The grapes are pressed as soon as they arrived at the press-house as colour and tannins are not necessary for white wines. The juice is then dropped into vats where it will ferment. The juice is fermented at low temperature (typically 15-20° C), to preserve delicate fruit aromas. If you can taste sweetness in white wine this is caused by unfermented sugar.
For red wines, grapes are crushed to release the juice, and then the juice and skin are put together in a fermenting vessel. The juice will be constantly mixed with the grape's skin to extract the red color out of it.
Grapes are pressed after fermentation, which occurs at higher temperature than white wines (25-30° C). The method of production of rosé wine is similar to that for red wines but juice and grape's skin will be separated earlier, to avoid tainting the wine too much. |
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Oak treatment:
Without oak, many wines as we know them would not exist. They would not have the same taste, smell, or the same texture. Oak feeds the wine and gives it depth, length, complexity and intensity. There are different methods to put the wine in contact with oak. For most of the new New World's wines, staves of oak (small planks) or chips of oak (large splinters) are soaked in the juice within metal or concrete tanks. This is the cheapest technique, used for inexpensive wines. For higher quality wines oak contact must be achieved by fermenting or ageing the wine in oak barrels. The flavours given by the oak barrels are much more complex and fine than the first method. Let the wine in oak barrel also increase its ageing potential. Last, it takes more time but gives higher quality which justifies higher price. |
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