Cold soaking the Pinot Noir

We picked two different lots of Pinot noir last week.  Both lots went from the vineyard to the  winery for crushing/de-stemming and then into tanks to undergo a cold maceration ("cold soak").  Keeping the grape juice and skins in a cool environment for a couple of days makes several things happen:

• compounds from the grapes get extracted into the must
• color is extracted from the skins which helps create a darker colored juice
• the aromatics of the wine are increased as elements from the skins, seeds, and grape body seep into the juice
• it reduces the chances of a spontaneous fermentation

In one of our lots, a spontaneous fermentation began on day 3 so we let it kick off for a day before inoculating it with yeast.  We'll go into detail about inoculation in another post.

- Serena