obsessed with wine podcast with Wesley Cable Sr On the New York City Podcast Network

The Daily Taste: Monday May 30th 2022 – Temperature, Racking, And Settling White Wine

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Last week we started going through the process of making both red and white wines in a commercial winery For white wines we got through receiving the fruit pressing and preparing for fermentation White wines are fermented much differently than red wines because they have delicate aromas and flavors that the winemaker wants to make sure end up in the finished wine This is done by controlling the temperature of white wine ferments so they don t ferment too fast A fast white wine ferment causes the wine to lose those delicate characteristics Before white wines can be inoculated the juice is pumped into a tank to allow it to settle This allows the solid particles in the juice to settle to the bottom of the tank In white wine clarity is very important so this is one step that helps clarify the wine To understand the next step of the process of making white wine you need to understand the anatomy of a stainless-steel tank I will post a few pictures of these tanks to the show website so you can see what I m talking about A stainless-steel tank has multiple openings and all of them have a specific purpose There is typically an opening at the top of the tank that is used to add additions to the fermenting wine and to check the aromas being produced by the fermentation There is a large door toward the bottom of the tank that opens to allow the winemaking team entry so they can clean the tank properly before any juice or wine are added There are also three small openings in the tank The smallest of openings is called a sample valve The sample valve is located to the right of the tank s main door and allows the winemaking team to walk up to the tank and get a sample of juice or wine for analysis The second of the small openings is at the very bottom of the tank which allows pumps to be connected to move wine in and out It can also be used to mix the tank contents by adding an air hose and fitting to the opening and forcing nitrogen into the tank Finally there is a small opening offset to the right and below the tank entrance called the racking valve Racking is the winery term for moving the clean juice located above any settled solids in the bottom of the tank into another tank In our white wine after 24 hours of settlement a sample is taken from the racking valve to see how clear the juice is at that level The sample is then taken to a machine called a turbidity meter which checks the samples turbidity in NTUs or how much solids remain in the juice If there are too many solids still suspended in the juice at the racking valve the winemaker will typically allow the juice to settle another day before testing a sample again If the turbidity is within the desired level the juice is ready to be racked off the sediment and into a fresh tank for fermentation The wineries I worked at in the past Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon were ready to be racked at 125 127 NTUs Pinot Grigio was racked between 200-250 NTUs and all other whites were ready at between 250-300 NTUs Racking really is an art and can be stressful because if you accidentally transfer some of the sediment to the fresh tank the settlement process will need to be started over again During the peak of harvest tank space is very important so the winemaker will not be happy if there is a setback due to a racking error Once the wine is racked off the sediment into a fresh tank the white juice is then inoculated with yeast that has been re-hydrated the same way we rehydrated the red wine yeasts The tank temperature is set at 55 degrees at the start of fermentation Every day the winemaking team will check the temperature of the fermentation and the BRIX or sugar level of the juice In white wine the winemaker wants a slow fermentation and only wants 1

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