How is White Wine Made?

White wine can vary drastically in both character and flavour when produced in different climates. A Chardonnay grown in a cool region, for example, can have high acidity and green fruit flavours, while the same grape grown in a hot climate would be less acidic and display tropical fruit notes. The fundamental process for producing a white wine, however, stays the same regardless. Here is our breakdown of how exactly white wine is produced, covering everything you need to know.

Vines

You would be forgiven for thinking the first step is to grow white grape varieties for white wine, but interestingly, you can actually use black grape varieties too. Vines should be planted 30-50 degrees either side of the equator for perfect grape growing conditions, and winemakers must then decide which varieties to grow to suit the climate of their region. They are left to grow for at least three to five years before any fruit can be harvested. Appellations will also dictate whether certain varieties should not be grown in specific wine regions.

Harvest

Once the grapes are plump and ready for picking, the winemaker will begin harvesting. The location and proximity of the vineyard to the equator will determine when harvest season begins. For the Northern Hemisphere this will be late July to September, while for the Southern Hemisphere it’s February to April. The winemaker will decide whether to harvest by hand or machine, which will impact the price and quality of the resulting wine.

Crushing

Perhaps the most fun part of winemaking? Once the grapes have been harvested and checked to ensure quality, some winemakers adopt the old-fashioned method of crushing grapes with their feet and hands. A messy job, but an essential one for breaking down the individual fruits into a juice. This can also be done using machines, if you want to keep clean!

Pressing

To make white wine, colour is not needed from the grape skins in the same way that it is for red wine production. Deep colour and tannins come from the grape skin, so it’s contact with the skins during fermentation that gives red wines their ruby and garnet hues, as well as a tannic mouthfeel. These features are not desired for white wines, so the winemaker always presses the grapes before fermentation to remove the skins completely. This is why black grapes can be used in white wine production, because this pressing stage removes the colourful skins, leaving only the pale and juicy pulp to turn into wine.

Fermentation

Now you’ve got your grape juice, which is free from any skin sediment, the next stage is to ferment the liquid into wine! The naturally sugary grape juice is put into stainless steel fermentation tanks or oak barrels with yeast, triggering a reaction that turns sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. For white wine, grapes are fermented for two to four weeks at a low temperature of 12-22 degrees (much lower than red) to allow delicate aromas to come through.

Maturation

For premium white wines, ageing in oak barrels is an important part of the winemaking process. It adds unique flavours of toast, vanilla, spice and sometimes coconut through the slow chemical reactions that occur in the barrel throughout maturation. The resulting wine will likely be hazy and cloudy.

Bottling

During maturation, fining agents are usually added to the blend to get rid of any cloudiness in the appearance of the wine, ensuring the end product is clear and bottle ready. Organic wineries may actually leave this part of the process out completely, as they feel that unfiltered wine produces more interesting results. Some white wines benefit from a little bottle ageing and these are usually sealed with a cork rather than a screw top. This is to impart complex flavours via contact with the cork and oxygen.