Maceration in Wine and Cider: How Long Should Your Fruit Stay on Its Skins?
Maceration in Wine and Cider: How Long Should Your Fruit Stay on Its Skins?
This week, I sat down for a tasting with a client. We're working on his second vintage together, and before planning anything, we tasted the first vintage he vinified on his own last year, pulled from barrels and tanks.
After reviewing his entire production process, there were, of course, many small changes we're putting in place this year. Together, they'll make a real difference. But the one change that may improve his wines the most? Being intuitive about maceration.
Maceration is one of the most underestimated steps in the cellar, and usually one of the first micro-adjustments I make when a producer wants to improve their wines. Here's why, and how you can start working with it this vintage.
What is Maceration?
Maceration is the length of time the must stays in contact with the skins of your fruit. I distinguish between two main types:
Pre-fermentation maceration | Fermentation maceration | |
|---|---|---|
When | Before fermentation starts | During fermentation |
Length | Short | A few hours to a few weeks |
Temperature | Cold | Fermentation temperature |
Protection | Inert gas | Cap management |
Best for | Gentle extraction | Building colour, structure and style |
What skin contact brings, and what it can take away?
During maceration, colour (anthocyanins) and tannins, both abundant in the skins of many fruits including grapes, move from the skins into the must.
Colour is easy to picture. Tannins are subtler: they bring structure, backbone, mouthfeel and texture. They're what makes a wine feel complete in the mouth.
But tannins have a shadow side. Over-extracted, or extracted from unripe fruit, they bring harsh, green and bitter tones. Stems and seeds contribute tannins too, and they can also be over-extracted, or unripe and bring a lot of green notes.
That's why maceration is never just a number of days. It's a balance between what you want to draw out and what you'd rather leave behind.
Choosing your maceration, fruit by fruit
When I want to be gentle: pre-fermentation maceration. Last year, we worked with a very unripe Pinot Noir after an early frost. We chose a short, cold, protected pre-fermentation maceration to take what the fruit could give without pulling out its green side. I'll do the same to lightly extract colour and structure from a white grape like Louise Swenson or L'Acadie. And it's possible, and highly enjoyable, with certain apple varieties when a light extraction suits the cider you want to create.
For everything else: maceration during fermentation. This is where you can play. With haskap or blueberry wines, the length of extraction, from a few hours to a few weeks, creates entirely different products. The same is true for one grape made two ways: a Radisson with a short maceration and a Radisson with an extended maceration are two different beasts. The difference may be less dramatic for some varieties, depending on skin thickness and how pronounced the colour is, but it's always significant.
In practice: three grapes, three decisions
This year, I accompanied a vigneron in Southern California through his first vintage. One of his goals was to ferment his first harvest of GSM: Grenache, Syrah and Mourvèdre. Rather than treating them as one wine, we fermented the three grapes separately and monitored extraction daily.
Grenache stayed on its skins the whole time, and we fermented separately half of it through carbonic maceration.
Syrah stayed on its skins the whole time.
Mourvèdre came off its skins after four days. The trick? Regular, intentional tastings.
The wines were then blended and are now finishing malolactic fermentation in neutral French oak. Each grape got the maceration it asked for, and together they're building a complex, linear, well-balanced wine. Next year, depending on what Mother Nature provides, the choices may be completely different. That's the point.
Running maceration trials in your first vintage
If it's your first vintage with your fruit, don't guess one maceration length. Run a few, and let the fruit show you.
Only change one variable: How long should this fruit stay on its skins? Keep everything else the same.
Split into small lots. Divide the same crushed fruit into a few containers of 1 to 20 litres, each with the same proportion of skins to juice.
Keep every lot identical except maceration. Same yeast, same nutrition, same temperature, same hygiene. Do not omit the punch downs as long as the solids are in.
Decide your pressing points before you start. For example: one lot pressed after a short cold maceration, one after a few days of fermentation, one at the end of fermentation. I would encourage to have a strong idea when starting but to also let your frequent, intentional tastings guide the final hours, days or weeks. The most important is impeccable note and record keeping.
Taste every day and write it down. Colour, aroma, and how the tannins feel: soft, gripping, green, bitter. Your notes are the real result of the trial.
Press each lot when they are ready, then let them finish their fermentations and settle.
Taste side by side, blind if you can, using your quality assessment framework and keeping your end goal in mind.
Write down what you'd do next year. And remember, you can blend your lots this first year: it adds complexity and makes a very enjoyable wine.
If you've been fermenting for years and don't want to reinvent the wheel, my one piece of advice is simpler: taste, taste, and taste some more during the process.
Ask the fruit
Start thinking of maceration as one of the most important stylistic tools in your cellar, whatever you're fermenting. The next time you walk the rows, ask yourself: what will this fruit want in terms of maceration? That way, you'll spend your season planning not just around what you want, but around what the land and the fruit want in any given vintage.
This is the kind of decision I work through with my students, winemakers and cider makers from every background, all over the world, in the program I lead. Not as rules to follow, but as reasoning they carry into every vintage.
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Happy harvest,
Alexandra
Alexandra Beaulieu is a consultant in oenology, winemaker, and fermentation consultant who has helped wineries, cideries, and craft producers across Canada and abroad design, refine, and scale their fermentation projects for over a decade.
