Wine · Terminology
Maceration
Steeping the juice or wine on the grape skins to extract colour, tannin and flavour.
Maceration is the period during which juice or wine sits in contact with the grape skins (and often pips and stems), extracting colour, tannin and flavour compounds. In red winemaking it is the whole game: red grapes have white juice, and everything that makes red wine red comes out of the skins during maceration.
The dials are time, temperature and agitation. Longer, warmer and more vigorous means more extraction — up to a point, after which the wine gets hard and bitter rather than deeper.
In practice
- Cold soak (pre-fermentation, 4–15 °C): extracts colour and aroma without alcohol, which pulls less tannin.
- Fermentation on skins (cuvaison): alcohol appears and becomes a solvent, extracting tannin in earnest.
- Extended maceration: weeks on skins after fermentation ends, which paradoxically softens tannin as it polymerises.
- Cap management — punch-downs (pigeage), pump-overs (remontage), délestage — keeps the floating skins wet and controls extraction rate.
Where you'll meet it
- All red winemaking.
- Rosé, where a few hours decide the colour.
- Orange/amber wines, which are white grapes macerated like reds.
Maceration by style
| Style | Skin contact | Result |
|---|---|---|
| White | None to a few hours | Pale, low tannin, aromatic |
| Rosé (direct press) | 2–20 hours | Pale pink, delicate |
| Rosé (saignée) | Bled off a red ferment | Deeper, fuller |
| Light red (Gamay, Pinot) | 5–10 days | Bright fruit, fine tannin |
| Structured red (Cabernet, Nebbiolo) | 2–4 weeks | Deep colour, firm tannin |
| Orange wine | Days to months | Tannic, oxidative, phenolic |
Carbonic maceration
A different mechanism entirely: whole, uncrushed bunches go into a CO₂-filled vessel and each berry ferments inside its own skin before yeast takes over. The result is vivid fruit — banana, kirsch, bubblegum — and very soft tannin. It is the signature of Beaujolais Nouveau, and in partial form (semi-carbonic) is used far more widely than the labels admit.