It’s amazing who the simple act of leaving a wine in contact with its skins and doing very little else can dish up such amazing aromas, flavours, and, textures.
Over the last decade, we’ve seen makers experimenting with how far they can push skin contact before and after alcoholic fermented. We’re not talking about just reds either. Skin contact for whites lasting as long as 12 months is more common than ever before, yet still only done on a relatively small scale.
It’s the perpetual experiment that is winemaking. Getting to know your vineyards, guessing how the season has impacted the fruit quality, and, going with your gut and wisdom from previous vintages!
We explore our thoughts on how post-fermentation maceration has progressed with our 2016 Wine Decoded Shiraz and why we’ve decided to press it in the video.
EPILOGUE
With hindsight would I have done anything differently? Possibly. I would have loved to see how much further we could push the maceration and what it would have done to the mouthfeel of the wine and tannins.
It’s always difficult with only 4 barrels of wine and 3 ferments we had some flexibility, not, as much as I would have loved to try more experiments.
Imagine how difficult it is for all of those growers in Burgundy that sometimes make just one barrel of an individual wine!
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