Making White Wine

Preparing the Grapes

Preparing the grapes to make a white wine is a much more involved process than the preparation for a red wine. This is due to the need to remove the skins of the grape.

Green Grapes

Green grapes are either pressed immediately or are lightly crushed and destemmed before pressing. Additionaly to crushing and destemming, the grapes might be macerated with the skins for 12 to 48 hours in a vinimatic. A vinimatic uses the principle of a cement mixer to extract the most out of the skins, which contain various aromatic compounds and flavors.

Red Grapes

You don't need green grapes to make a white wine, while this isn't a particuarly common practice, it is possible to make a white wine with red grapes! To do this the skins and pips of the red grapes need to be separated from the juice as quickly as posssible.

Clarification

Even after pressing there will still be lots of bits in the juice, to help remove these the must will usually be cold settled for 24 hours. Other methods of doing this include using a centrifuge or filtration

Even after this settling there could be anywhere between 0.1% to 10% of grape solids left in the must.

Fermentation

Like red wine, the fermentation vat is made of either oak or stainless steel. Fermentation of white wine uses lower temperature than that of red, and the optimum temperature for for fermentation is around 17 °C. High temperatures will give a complex wine, while lower temperatures produce more fruity and aromatic wines.

Return to the Wine Guide Contents
A brief history of Wine | Growing Vines and Grapes | Harvesting | Making Red Wine | Making White Wine | Making Rosé Wine | Making Champagne | To Oak or not to Oak? | From Fermentation to Bottle