Are you showing too much skin?

Many winemakers around the world are revisiting traditional practices of using extended skin contact with their whites wines. But, as Roger Morris reports, not everyone is convinced.

Even if you believe the old winemakers’ tale that wine is made in the vineyard, it is in the winery over the past century that such technologies as temperature controls, mechanical pumping, cultivated yeasts, additive nutrients, in-house labs, bacterial controls (sanitation) and related measures have greatly altered how wine is made, looks, tastes and ages, even in the humblest of wineries.

Along the way, these modern practices have perhaps been most evident in the increased gulf between how white and red wines are made when once the differences were minimal. There are many reasons for this gap, some philosophical, some practical and some based on the fear of what could go wrong if, like Lot’s wife, winemakers looked back to what once was.

Noted Bordeaux winemaker, consultant and enology professor, the late Denis Dubourdieu, has influenced a number of the region’s white winemakers to use limited skin contact in their white wines. “But the use of the skins has to be done very carefully,” Dubourdieu told me, “because it’s the best part and the worst part of the grape.”

We asked a variety of winemakers from around the world to comment on the whys and hows of their practices.

Click through for their comments…

Winemaker: Steve Smith

Winery: Craggy Range co-founder
Region: New Zealand, various regions
White Grapes: Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Riesling.

“I am not a fan of any skin contact time in the winery for any of our white wines. The stronger, more-aggressive flavour compounds seem to be extracted with skin contact, as they are located so close to the skin, and our fruit is already highly flavoured. The bigger issue is skin phenolics, which will always be extracted with skin contact and in general contribute broadness or even bitterness to the finished wine. The only way to cover for this is aggressive fining or leaving residual sugar in place.

“There are a couple of exceptions. Pinot Gris often needs flavour, as it’s a relatively neutral grape, and judicious skin contact helps extract spicy notes, and phenolics can help balance the lower acid/slippery texture of the wine. There is so much flavour in Gewürztraminer skins it is a shame not to get a good chunk of them.”

Winemaker: Sasa Radikon

Winery: Radikon
Region: Collio
White Grapes: Ribola Gialla, Pinot Grigio

“All our white wines are made with long skin contact, usually totalling about four months. The choice to make this skin contact wines was born in 1995 with the idea of Stanislao Radikon to extract more flavour from the skins of Ribolla Gialla grapes. In all the years since, we have tried different timing for skin contact between four days to nine months. We understand the most important thing, if you want to make a skin-contact wine, is the grapes must be ripe if you want the flavour and structure skin contact can give.

“Normally for the white wine, when its fermentation finishes and the cap goes down, the tank is closed, leaving the wine on the skins until the end of the malolactic fermentation. Afterwards, we rack, pressing slightly the skins, and the wine is aged for four years in large oak barrels of 25-35 hectolitre capacity before being bottled without filtration or addition of sulphur.”

Winemaker: Veronique Drouhin

Winery: Joseph Drouhin estate and negocient wines.
Regions: Burgundy and Willamette Valley, Oregon
Main grapes: Chardonnay, Aligoté

“It [skin contact] is not in the habit of Burgundy’s winemakers, although there are some experiments with Aligoté, and to some degree, with Chardonnay in the regional appellation. The problem in Burgundy is that you do need to keep the typicity of the soil, and if you modify the aromatic profile too much, you may hide the terroirs’ characteristics. A Puligny-Montrachet should always taste like a Puligny-Montrachet. Skin contact can be used to enhance aromas in Aligoté or Bourgogne blanc however.

“It is being done with success in Bordeaux with the Sauvignon Blanc, but there the emphasis is more on the variety than the soil expression. As we make wine in both Burgundy and Oregon, I might try to do it in Oregon with our Chardonnay, comparing a wine made with skin contact and one without. I will let you know the results in a couple of years!”

Expert: Valérie Lavigne-Cruège

Institution: University of Bordeaux, consultant, colleague of Denis Dubourdieux
Region: Bordeaux
White grapes: Various

“We sometimes use additional skin contact, but increasingly rarely. The climate is changing, so grape composition is changing, too. Skin contact is a tool to adjust acidity and increase aroma precursors, and you need cool climate and vigorous vines to obtain grapes with an ideal composition for skin contact – good acidity, high glutathione and aroma precursors content, low concentration of phenolic compounds. In good conditions, skin contact is able to increase glutathione and aroma precursors, mostly located in the skin, and, at the same time, to decrease acidity by potassium release from the skin.

“The danger comes from increased phenolic compounds, the white wines’ enemy. Their oxidized form, named quinones, will react with glutathione and aromas. The skin contact benefit will be lost. There is no way to avoid these phenolic compounds’ oxidation and damage, but they can be limited without any use of sulfur dioxide on grapes during skin contact.

“The grape variety makes a big difference! Additional skin contact with Viognier, Roussanne or Marsanne would damage the wine because of too-low acidity and high phenolic compounds concentration in the skin. On the contrary, Sauvignon Blanc or Gros Manseng, under cool climate, can get more expressive and balanced after skin contact. For Chardonnay, in my opinion, malolactic fermentation is a better tool to get complexity and balance.”

Winemaker: Katheleen Inman

Winery: Inman Family Winery
Region: Russian River Valley, US
White grapes: Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc

“I am not a fan. Modern winemaking has moved towards using enzymes to achieve more of the benefits of skin contact. However, as more winemakers now are looking to not use enzymes in order to make more natural wines, it has led to a return to the longer skin contact. Overall, I think that crushing whites through a de-stemmer or a screw press (as opposed to using a gentle bladder press of whole clusters), cold soaking for 6-24 hours or fully fermenting them with the skin or other times of extended maceration with the skins adds some flavours, tannins and other phenolic components can affect texture and structure. Obviously they also affect the colour.

“Phenolics in the wine can cause ‘pinking,” which I think is unattractive. Orange wines did have a bump or resurgence of interest several years ago, but many of the wines were interesting but not always delicious. In my experience, white wines with extended maceration exhibit a more rustic, less elegant quality.”

Winemaker: Antonino Santoro

Winery: Donnafugata
Region: Sicilia
White grapes: Various indigenous and international varieties

“We do skin contact for some of our white wines with maceration taking place for 10-12 hours at low temperatures (44 – 50° F). The main advantage is to extract aromatic precursors in order to have more flavourful wine with more complexity. A secondary advantage is to extract catechins (a kind of polyphenols) that give more body and longevity to the wine. The main danger is extracting a bitter taste and – when the grape is very rich of catechins – to have an undesired astringency.

“Grape varieties make the difference for the reasons stated above. We do skin contact mostly of all Zibibbo, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc grapes. Sometime we do also for Grillo and Catarratto, according to the vintage. We never do with Ansonica or Viognier because, in our experience, there would be a bitter taste and aftertaste.

Winemaker: Ralph Garcin

Winery : Château La Nerthe
Region: Châteauneuf-du-Pape
White grapes: Roussanne and other southern Rhone varieties.

“At Châteauneuf du Pape, we don’t have very aromatic white grapes, so skin contact would only bring tannins, phenolic taste and bitterness. While the advantages of skin contacts are more aromas, more body, more complexity and more agebility, the dangers for us are greater excess tannins, bitterness, orange-coloured wines, early oxidized aromas (honey, wax), loss of finesse, less delicate, heavier type of wine.

“A true skin contact means vinifying a white wine like a red wine with a two- to three-week maceration. Some very good producers know how to handle that, as did Didier Dagueneau. It makes very unique wines where you lose the typicity, or so-called typicity, of the grape by changing the way you express it. It’s like the Ying and the Yang of one single grape. Please try Domaine Turner Pageot’s Sauvignon Blanc, ‘La Rupture,’ made like a red, in Gabian, Languedoc. It’s everything but the idea of we have of a Sauvignon Blanc.”

Winemaker: Christopher Tynan

Winery: Cliff Lede
Region: Stags Leap, Napa Valley
White grapes: Sauvignon Blanc

“It really depends on the vintage and the block. We have found that giving a portion of our Sauvignon Blanc grapes a short, pre-fermentation maceration lends additional body, mouth feel and concentration to the wine. However, it depends on the phenolic composition, maturity, and flavour profile of the skins. Excessive skin contact can cause the wine to seem bitter or astringent, and it can also lead to off-color production under oxidizing conditions, creating pink and orange hues in the wine.”

Winemaker: Susana Balbo

Winery: Susana Balbo
Region: Argentina, various regions
White grapes Torrontes primarily

“I think this technique adds undesirable aromatics due to an excess of phenolic flavours which damage and alter the balance and aromatic notes I personally like in white wines.

“The purpose of additional skin contact is to extract flavours, complexity and more structure in the mouth. However, to reach these results, it is very important to have a strict control of the sunshine over the bunches – cooler climates and advantageous sun exposure – to avoid the presence of bitter flavours.

“Otherwise, you need really aggressive treatments to make them softer, and you lose the advantages. Certainly, each grape variety has unique characteristics. Torrontés is a very sensitive variety resulting in wines rich in phenolics with intense aromas, but bitter at the same time if we are not very cautious during the grape´s maturation process, crushing, the skin contact time and of course the elaboration of the juice previous the fermentation.”

Winemaker: Ed Boyce

Winery: Black Ankle
Region: Maryland
White grapes: Chardonnay, Albarino, Gruner Veltliner, Viognier

“The advantage we are looking for is aromatic – some varieties have good aromatics in the skins, so a soak can absorb some of those. The downside is dissolving phenolics into the wines, making them heavy and plodding. The trick is finding the right combination of time, temperature and variety for each year. We have settled on a three-hour soak for our Chardonnays and a four-hour soak for our Gruner Veltliner after chilling the grapes to 50 degrees overnight. For Albarino, we don’t see much aromatic benefit, so we try to get the Albarino pressed as quickly as we can. Viognier, our other white wine variety, has extremely tannic skins (which is why it is such a good co-fermentation partner) and picks up phenolics quickly, so we also press that as fast as we can.

“Soaking does change the winemaking somewhat. GV picks up even more proteins during the soak, so it needs more bentonite fining to keep it clear. I suspect Sauvignon Blanc is similar. One lesson we have learned – the gentleness of the de-stemmer/crusher is crucial. If skins are ripped or seeds are crushed, the phenolics practically jump into the wine. We bought a new de-stemming/sorting system two year ago which gives us primarily whole berries, and we have been able to more aggressive about soaking times without worrying about heaviness in the wines.”

Winemaker: Tyler Thomas

Winery: Dierberg/Star Lane
Regions: Santa Barbara, US
White varieties: Chardonnay

“Currently we are not using skin contact time for any of our white wines, although I have prior experience with using skin contact. However, now that we have had some experience with our fruit and how it responds to changes, exploring some skin contact, or even skin-fermented white wines, may be fun. We did have extra Viognier in 2014, and we fermented it whole cluster, then drained the free run to a stainless steel barrel.

I found the aromatics consistent with expectations: a bit reductive, fruit diminished and, overall, less varietally correct. However I’ve always been a sucker for the extra tannin added and what it does for the electricity of white wine texture. While many enjoy the aromas from skin-fermented white wines, I personally find them contrived. Variety probably makes a difference, but I think the overarching principles of balance should rule the day.”

Winemaker: Nico Grobler

Winery: Eikendahl
Region: Stellenbosch, South Africa
White grapes: Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc

“I am lucky enough to work mostly with Chardonnay and a bit of Sauvignon Blanc. I did some skin contact extraction on Chardonnay a few times and just felt you lose all the magic in Chardonnay while not gaining anything. Sauvignon Blanc is a different story. We produce a very-textured style with lots of layers, not just focused on freshness and drinkability, so skin contact helps me to gain in power and texture and intensity.

“I like to use a bit, but not too much, skin contact to gain a hint more precursors before fermentation. I am also careful to not over extract and not to gain savoury flavours, losing the fruit. I like a Sauvignon with a bit of structure and not just fresh and clean – overall a very successful practice.”