Maceration (wine)

Cabernet Sauvignon musts interact with the skins during fermentation to add color, tannins and flavor to the wine.
Most red wine grapes have their color concentrated in the skin, while the juice is much lighter in color. The duration of contact between the crushed grape skins and their juice impacts the final color and flavor profile.

Maceration is the winemaking process where the phenolic materials of the grape—tannins, coloring agents (anthocyanins) and flavor compounds—are leached from the grape skins, seeds and stems into the must. To macerate is to soften by soaking, and maceration is the process by which the red wine receives its red color, since raw grape juice (with the exceptions of teinturiers) is clear-grayish in color. In the production of white wines, maceration is either avoided or allowed only in very limited manner in the form of a short amount of skin contact with the juice prior to pressing. This is more common in the production of varietals with less natural flavor and body structure like Sauvignon blanc and Sémillon. For Rosé, red wine grapes are allowed some maceration between the skins and must, but not to the extent of red wine production.[1]

While maceration is a technique usually associated with wine, it is used with other drinks, such as Lambic, piołunówka, Campari and crème de cassis, and also used to steep unflavored spirit with herbs for making herb-based alcohol like absinthe.

  1. ^ Robinson, Jancis, ed. (2006). The Oxford Companion to Wine (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 414–5. ISBN 978-0-19-860990-2.