A Tale of Two Skin Contacts

Rosés and Orange Wines are like two sides of the same winemaking coin. Like a good handshake, it all has to do with skin contact (well … more important for handshakes is a grip with the right amount of firmness, but that quality doesn’t translate to winemaking).

Interestingly enough, the color in wine does not come from the interior of the grapes … for the most part. With some exceptions, grapes have colorless flesh. Even grapes with the blackest skins will have clear juice running inside of them. (The exceptions are called teinturier grapes, which have both red skins and red flesh.)

The colors and tannins reside in the skins. So, (basically speaking) to make a red wine, you take red grapes, crush them, and then macerate them — that is you let the flesh sit with the skins for a period of time, say several days. Now, if you keep your crushed grapes cold enough to prevent fermentation, you can engage in an extended maceration for a few months, making a richer wine, because, during this skin contact phase, the color and the tannins of the skins seep into the juice.

For rosés (again, generally speaking), you take red grapes and allow a comparatively small amount of skin contact. Voilà! A pink wine instead of a red one. (For more detail on making rosés, click here.)

Of course, white wines don’t generally have maceration periods 1) because their skins don’t have as much color and tannins, and 2) because color and tannin aren’t what we usually look for in white wines. However, you can macerate white grapes, and, if you do, what little color and tannins there are seep into the juice, giving you orange wines.

Well, for this Wine Wednesday, we give you some close contact with the skin contacts!

It’s Orange Wines and Rosés! Please take a break from your week and join us anytime between 5:00 and 6:30 PM for this free, walk-up tasting. See you there!