Search results for: skin contact
Refers to the process of grape skins steeping in juice or fermenting must to impart color and flavor to the wine.
Blanc de Noirs:
"White from blacks," meaning a white wine made of red or black grapes, where the juice is squeezed from the grapes and fermented without skin contact. The wines can have a pale pink hue. This term is used for Champagne that is made entirely from Pinot Noir and/or Pinot Meunier instead of a mix of both red and white grape varieties.
The juice released by a pile of grapes as their skins split under their own weight, before they are mechanically pressed. With white wines, this initial juice is considered to be the highest quality since it has the least amount of contact with bitter elements in the pips, skins and stems.
This process, used primarily in making red wine, involves steeping grape skins and solids in wine after fermentation, when alcohol acts as a solvent to extract color, tannins and aroma from the skins (aided by heat, the amount of skin contact and time). Cold maceration (steeping when the must is not heated), takes place before fermentation.
The thick layer of skins, stems and seeds that forms at the surface of fermenting red wine. Cap management, or breaking up the cap to increase contact between the skins and the liquid, is important since red wines extract color and flavor from the skins.
Rosés, also known as blush wines, range in color from muted salmon-orange to bright pink. These wines are made from red grapes, colored through limited skin contact or, in rare cases, the addition of small quantities of red wine.
After fermentation, the mixture of red grape juice, skins, lees and other solids is pressed to separate the juice from the solids. Because extended skin contact is undesirable for white wines, white grapes are pressed before fermentation.
White wines made with extended grape skin contact during fermentation or maceration, imparting an orange hue to the finished wine, along with tannins. The practice originated thousands of years ago in the Caucasus, but has more recently regained popularity in Italy's Friuli region and the neighboring Brda district of Slovenia.