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Vinification
Vinification begins with harvest. For Rocca Maura, it starts around August 15th with our cuvée Effet Mer, a low degre wine made with grapes harvested slightly before maturity
Once harvested, the grapes are brought to the cellar, where the fruits are destemmed and crushed. The vinifcation process is not the same for white and rose than for red wine.
White & Rosé
Harvesting is only done une the morning to work on fresh grapes. The fruits are destemmed, crushed and pressed. The juice is send in a tank for a 24h cold settling. The next day, the clarified juice is pumped in the fermentation tank. The sediments are filtered and sent in the fermentation vat.
Fermentation is key to the winemaking process, as the sugar in the liquid is transformed into alcohol. In order to keep primary aromas, the fermentation temperature is around 16°C. Once the fermentation is over, the wine is clarified to elimiate thick lees, and a little quantity of sulfur is added to avoid the malolactic fermentation. This second fermentation which converts malic acid into lactic acid would lower too much the wine’s acidity, and it would loose its crispiness. The wine is then aged on thin leeds for the whole winter, till it is filtered before it’s bottling
No! Rosé is vinified with the same grapes than red wine. However the pulp and the skin are in contact only during the pressing time(2 to 4 hours). This short maceration in the press gives little color to the juice. If you want darker rosé, you need a longer maceration time, which is done on our Tavel cuvée for instance.
The skin of a grape used for white wine is white. The grape used for rose will have a red/dark skin. It’s also possible to make white wine with red grapes : it’s called « blanc de noir». We do not use much this technique at Rocca Maura, but it’s very common in Champagne.
Red
After crushing, the grapes are put in a vat. Fermentation starts naturally thanks to yeasts that are on the grape’s skins.
For red wines, maceration is the key. Black or red grapes must macerate slowly. This enables all the aromas, and tannins in the skin, pulp, and seeds to infuse the fruity, fermented juice. Several techniques are used to intensify the grape flesh: pumping over and rack and return, which consists in moving and mixing the marc that forms at the top and of the vat, over the fermented must.
Once the must has properly fermented and macerated, the young wine ( vin de goutte) is separated from the flesh by écoulage (running off), i.e., by draining the liquid into another container without the solid residue. The remaining skin are then removed from the vat and pressed to extract press wine, which is highly concentrated and tannic.
Malolactic fermentation will take place naturally thanks to a bacteria. It will reduce the acidity to make a more supple, round ans silky texture wine. Once all the vinification steps have been completed the wine is clarified one last time in a new recipient, and filtered. After ageing, the wines will be bottled for you greatest pleasure!