Your glass of wine just got more fascinating. Simply put, fermentation in winemaking is what converts grapes into alcohol. While white wine is created by just fermenting grape juice, red wine is made using the whole grape, grape skins and all.
This is what gives red wine such high tannins. For the wine to ferment, winemakers add yeast to the grape juice. In fact, this incredible process also helps to shape the flavor, aroma, and look of the wine.
When winemakers use the fermentation process to convert their grapes to wine, they also produce a whole host of other complex compounds, which help to make wine, well, wine! All of these complex compounds help to give your favorite wines their iconic flavors and aromas. Esters, for instance, are known for their ability to make wine taste citrusy and floral, while norisoprenoids help to give Chardonnay some of its more spicy notes. It really is quite complicated chemistry.
These methods have been developed over centuries, all in order to give you that perfect glass at the end of a long day. However, there are thousands of types of yeasts to choose from, all of which have different strengths and weaknesses.
Wild yeasts or native yeasts are found on the fruit or from around the vineyard. Cultured yeasts are created by winemakers in a lab. While wild yeasts are praised for their ability to add unique flavors to wine, they are unpredictable and can lead to spoilage. There are many different strains of these cultured yeasts and each one can affect the flavor outcome of the wine varietal. Using different yeast strains creates more diversity in the wine varietals produced.
Cultured yeasts are stored in a dried inactive form, but diluted with grape juice before being added to the unfermented grapes. Primary fermentation. Malolactic fermentation - clarification. Primary fermentation transforms grape juice into wine The primary, or alcoholic, fermentation of Champagne wines is the process that transforms the grape musts into wine: the yeast consumes the natural grape sugars, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide CO 2 along with other by-products that contribute to the sensory characteristics of the wine.
Primary fermentation takes place immediately after pressing, usually in stainless tanks but occasionally in wood A few producers still ferment their wines in oak casks, tuns, etc but most prefer thermostatically controlled stainless-steel vats. Control of fermentation Artificial yeasts Saccharomyces cerevisiae , in dried or liquid form are added to facilitate the control of fermentation. This first step usually lasts between 10 and 15 days and requires constant control.
Although the fermentation usually stops by itself when the volume of sugars falls and the microorganisms die due to lack of food, it is safer to control it by means of the temperature, since by increasing it or reducing it we can render the yeasts inactive. This is the second fermentation and it aims to reduce the acidity, turning the malic acid of the fruit into lactic acid. This process results in some loss of colour and an increase in volatile acidity.
This process is recommended for wines that have a lot of flavour per se , because with a white wine, for example, it would result in a wine without flavour or aroma.
As you can guess, each type of fermentation results in a type of wine. As a general rule, white wines requires a lower temperature in the first fermentation and this rises until we get to red wine, which requires a higher temperature in order to extract the polyphenols present in the skin and seeds of the grapes. Malolactic fermentation is typical of red wines which, as well as a more complex production process, have a greater aromatic complexity , which is complemented by the oak of the barrels in the case of aged wines.
If you find the whole process remarkable, you will be surprised to learn that wine fermentation is a process that is almost as old as the history of mankind.
But it was not until the middle of the 19th century that Louis Pasteur began to research the process of transforming sugars into alcohol. In conclusion, it is worth noting that, thanks to the different types of fermentation in wines, we can choose from numerous wines with different complexities, with the Grandes Vinos portfolio being a great example of this.
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