How White Wine is Made

• One misconception about white

winemaking is that you need to use peeled
grapes. It’s true that you don’t want grape
skins in most white wine fermentations, but
the technique isn’t that laborious!

• Learning about white winemaking gives us

perspective because white wines are made
differently than red wines. You’ll also
improve your wine tasting abilities. So, let’s
get into the 11 steps of how white wine is
made.
Step 1: Harvest the grapes
• You can use either red or white wine grapes
to make white wine. The reason it’s possible
to use red wine grapes is because the skins
aren’t used in the fermentation (grape skins
are what’s responsible for color).

• That being said, most white wines use green

and yellow-colored grapes. For example,
Chardonnay and Riesling are both yellow-
colored grapes!
Step 2: Press the grapes
• Picked grapes head immediately to the
winery and go into a wine press. The press
squeezes juice from the grapes which gets
collected into a tank.

• During this step, grapes also receive sulfur

dioxide to stop bacterial spoilage before the
fermentation starts. Check out this eye-
opening article about sulfites and your
health.
Step 3: Let the juice settle

• The fresh-squeezed juice is

cloudy and sweet! It sits in a
tank for a little while to settle
and chill down. The settling
process helps remove
suspended solids that would
normally add bitterness to the
finished wine.
 What happens is small sugar-eating yeasts consume the grape
sugars and make alcohol. The yeasts come either from a
commercial packet (just like you might find in bread making), or
occur spontaneously in the juice.

Step 4: Add yeast Spontaneous fermentation uses yeast found naturally on grapes!
to start the wine
fermentation
Here are a couple of notes on wine yeast:
Commercial yeasts allow winemakers to produce very
consistent wines year-in-and-out.
Natural yeasts are more challenging to make but often result
in really interesting-tasting wines.
 It takes about 14 days to ferment a white wine. In order to
preserve delicate floral aromas, white wines ferment at cooler
temperatures than red wines.

Step 5: Additionally, white wine is rarely placed in an open

fermentation tank. The goal is to reduce oxygen exposure
Alcoholic which can burn off all those delicate aromas in white wine.

fermentation
One interesting thing to note about winemaking in general is
that the winemaker controls the sweetness level. If a
winemaker wants a slightly sweet or “off dry” wine, they can
simply stop the yeast from eating the sugars (usually by super
chilling it). We call the remaining sugar “residual sugar.”
Step 6: Malolactic fermentation
(aka “second fermentation”)
• Malolactic fermentation isn’t an alcohol
fermentation but an acid conversion carried
out by a little bacteria. The bacteria eats
malic acid found in the wine and poops out
lactic acid.
• The result is a really creamy, smooth, and
buttery tasting wine. If this makes you think
of Chardonnay, you’re exactly right! That
creaminess you get in most Chardonnay is
not a feature of the grape, but of this
particular winemaking process.
• Malolactic Fermentation is optional and
honestly not used on many white wines. Still,
once you recognize it in white wine, you’ll be
able to identify it almost every time!
 • When the wine is done, it sits in tanks or barrels
for a little while. During this time some
winemakers use a tool that looks like a golf club
to stir the wine.
• Stirring causes all these little dead yeast
Step 7: Stir particles, called lees, to float up into the wine.
The lees add flavor to the wine (tastes kind of
the “lees” like beer or bread) and it also gives wine more of
a creamy texture.
• Check out this article for more information on
white wines that receive lees stirring.
 Step 8: Make the blend

• After the wine is done aging it’s time to make the

blend! While it’s common to have single varietal
white wines, the winemaker can still go through a
barrel selection process to create a single variety
blend.
• Since the wine is still somewhat awkward at this
stage, the winemaker focuses carefully on texture to
create a final wine.
• If you’re curious to know more, definitely check out
this list of famous wine blends to explore.
 At this point, the wine is still cloudy. So, to make it clear,
many winemakers add clarifying or “fining” agents to remove
suspended proteins in the wine (proteins make wine cloudy).

Step 9: Fining agents include casein (a milk derivative) or egg whites,

but there is a growing group of white winemakers using
Clarifying bentonite clay because it’s vegan.

the wine Finally, the wine gets passed through a filter for sanitation.
This step reduces the likelihood of bacterial spoilage.

A few rare white wines (including orange wine) do not

receive fining and filtering. The winemaker can simply wait
patiently for the white wine to become clear with time!
Step 10: Bottling and
labeling wines
Now, it’s time to bottle our wine. It’s very
important to do this step with as little
exposure to oxygen as possible. A small
amount of sulfur dioxide is often added
to help preserve the wine.
Step 11: Wine goes to
market
• For most white wines, the time to
market is much less than red wines. This
is because whites are loved for their
fresh, fruity, and floral flavors – all of
which come through freshness, not age.

• Still, you’ll find a few fine white wines

that receive extended aging and taste
quite different from the rest.