White Wine Making

White wines are much more delicate than reds, so making white wines requires special handling techniques. Delicate or no, white wines can still be seperated into classes of light, medium or full-bodied wines.

White Wine Grape picking

Light-bodied white wines require lower alcohol - thus grapes are picked at 10-12 degrees Baumé, whereas full-bodied white wines would be looking for 12-14 degrees Baumé.

Finer white wine grapes should be picked early in the morning to avoid high temperatures, which stimulate enzymatic or oxidative effects [eg: of mould] on the juice.

Must Handling

When making white wines, the juice and skin are usually seperated quickly to avoid skin colour and phenolic components permeating the wine. Fuller-bodied white wines are the exception - they do involve a small degree of skin contact to add complexity.

'Free-run' juice [separates from the grapes with minimal pressing - usually just the weight of the grapes in the container] makes the best fine white wines. Juice acquired through pressings are also usually too high in phenolics for fine wines, so are usually either used for a lesser quality wine, or perhaps treated with a tannin extraction agent to save them.

In warmer regions, acid [usually tartaric or sulphuric] is added to balance and lower the pH of the resulting wine.

The white wine must is also chilled to inhibit natural microflora [yeasts] interfering with the fermentation. This is important for fine wines - the winemaker needs control of fermentation to maintain delicacy. Broad, yeasty characters are not winners in fine Rieslings.

In some fuller-bodied white wines, though, the involvement of wild yeasts is encouraged to create greater complexity.

White Wine Types & Styles

Click on these links to discover different types & styles of white wine:

Light bodied, dry whites

Full Bodied, Dry Whites

Sweet White Wines