WHITE WINES

The colour of white wine can be between pale to bright yellow with shades of golden hues to green reflections. Many conventional white wines are fined and sterilely filtered in a process of adding substances such as albumin or bentonite into the fermented liquid, who attract and bond with small particles of grapes. The bonded particles are then removed however some experts of white wine claim that not all of the substances can be removed, and that the additives change the flavour of the wine.

Furthermore, the aforementioned Albumin is a protein derived from animal liver, which makes any white wine it is used to find unsuitable for consumption by vegans/vegetarians.

Natural white wine is un-fined and may be naturally filtered. The process of natural filtering involves taking the barrels that hold the wine out of the cellar and into the cold night air. The low temperature makes the particles in the wine go down to the bottom of the barrel which makes it possible to separate from the liquid.

Methods like these, which are manually intensive, very demanding and require experience and skill, underpin the quality of low intervention, natural white wine. Much effort, experience, skill and talent are required for the craft, however, non of them manipulate or change any of the characteristics of the wine.

Some natural winemakers choose to produce white wines that may have a cloudy appearance such as the Zerobibabo Bianco

And some prefer to produce a clear white wine such as the Loire valley’s Chenin Blanc in Les Moyens Du Bord

Sparkling wine is in the majority of cases made from white wine varieties. Known types of sparkling white wines are Champagne (Chardonnay), Prosecco (Glera) and Cava (Xarel lo, Parellada and Macabeo). You can read about Sparkling wine here (Link to sparkling wine page).

Some natural winemakers utilise one very particular and traditional method for producing white wine in which they macerate the skins of the grapes for a much longer period than a typical white wine. It is a similar method to one used for making red wines. The result of this process is more colour from the grape skin is transferred into the wine which produces an Orange colour wine. It is also called “long maceration white wine”.