
White wine
5 June, 2014
While red wines are fermented with the skins and seeds of grapes, white wines are fermented using only clear grape juice.
From our vineyards to our cellar, great importance is given to meticulous grape selection to ensure the use of the best-quality grapes. After going through the sorting table where our team carefully removes the unwanted berries or leaves, our grapes are fully de-stemmed to avoid greenish aromas and to get only the best fruits. The best wine is thus provided to you.
The next step is pressing, where the juice is separated from the skins. In the case of white wine, grapes are pressed quickly in order to separate the juice from the skin, seeds and other solids. The juice produced then goes through stabilisation.
The juice is filled into stainless steel tanks for stabilisation. Temperature stabilisation is done by cooling the juice between 10°C and 15°C for 24 hours (conditions suitable for the white wine fermentation). Yeasts are added to induce alcoholic fermentation. The action of yeasts is to transform the sugar naturally contained in the grape juice into alcohol. A lot of CO2 is also produced, which is why it is very important to leave the tanks open until the fermentation is finished.
Once the fermentation is completed, depending on the style of wine we want, the ageing is done in either stainless steel or oak barrel. Next, the clarification process begins. Clarification is done by transferring the fermented juice from one tank to another in order to remove the natural deposit or lees. This process is called racking. Our whites normally go through 5 to 6 racking cycles until the wine is totally cleared.
The next step is not necessarily done to all white wines but to all red. This is called Malolactic Fermentation. This fermentation is not about alcohol; it is about transforming the Malic Acid into Lactic Acid. It reduces and ‘softens’ the acidity of the wine. Depending on the level of acidity of our white wines, we may apply this step to give them more softness.
Before bottling, one filtration is done to ensure the optimum quality of our wines in your glass. Our white wines are now ready to be bottled.