The world of wine has developed its own language over the centuries. This language includes both adjectives that highlight the artisan identity of the wine and technical concepts gained by the production process. There is a strong possibility that you will be startled when you first encounter the term carbonic maceration. Even though you are familiar with the carbon part, there is a chill of the unknown in the maceration part. In this article, we will try to approach carbonic maceration in a way that we can all easily understand. Let's start with the maceration.
The basis of wine production is the conversion of natural sugar in must, which is the grape juice obtained from collected grapes, into alcohol by wine yeast. When explaining this transformation in WAYANA tastings, we use the metaphor of a suction pump: working like a single-celled factory, the wine yeast eats the sugar in the must for nutrition, converts it into alcohol, and removes the released carbon dioxide from a suitable place.
Another issue that wine production pays attention to in order to obtain wine in different styles such as white, rosé and red is related to the way the grape skins are used. That is to say, regardless of the type and color of the grapes, when the grapes are squeezed, the color of the must is various shades of yellow. In other words, dark colored grapes do not produce dark colored must. In order for this color to turn red, the grape skins must be included in the grape juice. The name of this process is maceration: keeping the skins in grape juice. As we understand maceration is, now let’s move towards the carbonic maceration.
The French scientist Pasteur, to whom we owe the scientific decipherment of fermentation, was the first person to observe that grapes in a normal environment differ from grapes in a carbon dioxide environment. As a result of research on this subject, scientists have reached the following conclusions.
If grape berries are kept whole (intact) in a carbon dioxide environment:
- They lose approximately 20% of the sugar in their body
- Alcohol levels increase by 2%
- The sharp malic acid content in wine is reduced by half
- Acid level increases by 0.25 units
You may wonder how it is possible to provide a carbon dioxide environment and then keep the grapes as a whole in this environment. The first way is to place grape clusters in a tank dedicated to carbonic maceration, empty the air inside and press carbon dioxide. Some winemakers obtain an alternative hybrid solution to this method during the fermentation stage. In addition to the grapes they crush to get the juice, they add a certain amount of grapes, the amount of which they decide themselves, into the fermentation tank as whole bunches. While the crushed grains begin to ferment at the bottom of the tank, all the grapes in bunches are collected at the top of the tank, and the carbon dioxide gas released during fermentation surrounds the bunches at the top of the tank. Thus, two birds are killed with one stone and a new balance is achieved. At this stage, how long the grapes will remain in carbon dioxide depends on the winemaker's expectation and the initiative is entirely up to the oenologist. These periods can vary from one or two days to one or two weeks.
Carbonic maceration is a technique most commonly used in the famous French Beaujolais wines. Let us remind you that this method is also used in the normal production of the Gamay grape, which is the most preferred grape in the production of Beaujolais wine, and carbonic maceration is also used in grapes that are sometimes difficult to process, such as Carignan.
