Winemaking: Extracting Color and Tannin

The color of juice from Cabernet Sauvignon is the same as that from Chardonnay. What makes the king of red wines red is the fermenting of the juice with its skins and macerating the skins with the becoming wine.

There are a number of different methods of cracking open the cell walls in the skins of red grapes to get all the juicy anthocyanin and tannin from those cells diffused into the wine. It’s the winemaker’s job to figure out the best method - they all contribute varied effects to the overall structure - for the wine being made.

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The video shows two methods of extraction - punch-downs and pulse-air. In the first section, Assistant Winemaker, Beth Refsnider, is using a rod with a grate attached to push the cap of grape skins into the liquid. And much like dunking a tea bag into hot water, the alcohol in the wine strips color and tannin from the grape skins so that it is infused into the liquid.

In the second part, I am using a pulse-air gun that directs air under the cap into the wine until the wine erupts over the cap. Both of these methods work to extract the elements we want. The pulse-air is less physically taxing than punch-downs but it can also add too much oxygen into a ferment if you’re not careful. Too much air at the wrong time can lead to wines that are too soft in tannin and that can have elevated levels of volatile acidity in the form of ethyl acetate.

Punch-downs are very effective at breaking fruit up and getting tannin out of the skins, but it is very taxing (I have a bum shoulder to prove it!), and can only be effectively done in small fermenters because of the limited length of the punch-down rod.

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Steven Kent Mirassou