Why are white wines NOT fermented on the skins??

[Chuck E]

In another thread (HELP???), the discussion turned to skins in white wines.

Hence my question, why aren't white wines fermented just like reds?

I sometimes put crushed green grapes in my white kits to tweak the body, but when I make Chardonnay from grapes I follow the standard protocol.

 

[cmason1957]

There is a new (well maybe not that new) trend to orange wines, where you treat a white just like a red and ferment on the skins. One of my friends owns a winery in Missouri and he does somewhat like that. Picks, crush/destem (no kmeta), let sit for 24-48 hours, natural yeast starts the ferment, then press and let ferment finish. His wines are certainly more mouthfilling than other whites from other wineries made with the same grapes.

 

[stickman]

I think experience over the years of making white wine has shown that extracting certain phenolic compounds from the skin, ultimately leads to the wine being more astringent and bitter, more brown in color as it ages, and can affect the aromatics negatively. Some white grapes are more suseptable to these issues than others. This topic is related to another discussion regarding the "white juice club" or "brown juice club", in other words, do you allow your white must to oxidize before fermentation so that the phenolics that turn brown can be removed early, or do you protect the must from oxygen all the way through to the finished wine, with the risk of it turning brown later with just the slightest oxygen contact.

 

[tradowsk]

A few years ago, a local winery did 2 batches of riesling: one pressed and fermented without skin contact at all, and the other had about 24hrs of skin contact before pressing.

The difference between the 2 wines was striking. The non-skin riesling was light, fruity, and citrusy. The skin riesling was much less crisp, less refreshing, and more like a chardonnay. The skin contact pulled out more savory, denser, red wine-esque flavors.

So it depends what flavors and characteristics you want in your wine.

 

[user 36973]

I've been giving my whites, no so2, yeast at crush and then time overnight on the skins to start fermentation. Press the next morning. Done with cayuga, seyval and traminette.

Overall quite happy with the enhanced varietal flavor. No off color or aromas.

 

[Rocky]

I have done it both ways in the past and, as stated variously above, the wine in contact with the skins is not as light and fruity. When I lived in New York, I made a Delaware wine from white grapes on skins and it was very good. That was about 25 years ago and we had some bottles that we only used for cooking that were about 20 years old when we used the last one. That wine darkened slightly over time and got to tasting much like a white Vermouth but it never spoiled. When we made wine at home, we blended Zinfandel and Muscat (and co-fermented both grapes on the skins). That was a very good Italian table wine.