Burgundy’s Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are famed throughout the world. The terroir of the region is perfectly suited to the temperament of the grapes, and barring disasters like early frost or extreme drought, Burgundy yearly harvests are of the highest quality.
But the story doesn’t end there. Before the bottle hits your table, the grapes have to be made into wine, and this is where the experience, expertise and tradition of the Burgundy winemaker comes into play.
In this article, we’ll run through that winemaking process, from grape to bottle, to give you an idea of all that goes into making a bottle of delicious Burgundy.
Harvest
Unsurprisingly, winemaking begins with the grapes. In a good harvest, the phenolic compounds (responsible for flavor, body, and mouthfeel) have developed and matured, and grapes are balanced between a lively acidity and the sugars that’ll eventually ferment into alcohol.
A shorter, cooler growing season means grapes don’t reach the same degree of ripeness as hotter regions like Spain or California. This means less sugar and tropical fruit flavors, and more of the elegance, complexity, richness and restraint that are characteristic of Burgundy.
Not all Burgundy winemakers grow their own grapes. Négociants are wine merchants who purchase grapes or pressed juice from growers, and use this to produce their wine. This practice actually began in Burgundy, but has now spread to much of the wine world. By necessity, relationships between négociants and growers are ones of trust - the quality of the grape or juice will determine the quality of the finished wine.
Crushing and Pressing
After harvest, the process for red and white wines reaches a slight fork in the road.
For reds, grapes are destemmed and lightly crushed in order to split the skins, exposing the juice to the tannins, pigment, and other flavor compounds in the skins and seeds. This mixture (called ‘must’) is left to macerate and ferment.
Fun fact: Since grape stems can add an extra punch of tannins, vintners sometimes opt for “whole-cluster fermentation” to up the tannin level for delicate grapes like Burgundy Pinot Noir.
Every day, the winemaker punches down the layer of skins and seeds that have floated to the top of the vat in a process called ‘pigeage’, which increases the diffusion of flavor compounds and adds body to the wine.
After the primary fermentation, red grapes are pressed to separate the juice.
For white wines, things are a little different. Since the infusion of tannins and pigment aren’t what’s desired, destemming and infusion are skipped, and grapes are crushed and pressed at the same. The stems left behind create small channels that allow the juice to flow more easily.
In both cases, vintner’s distinguish between “free-run” juice, which runs freely after the grapes are crushed, and “pressed” juice, which has to be squeezed from the remainder of the must and thus has more astringent tannins and other compounds.
Free-run juice (about 75-80% of the total) is the good stuff, but winemakers often add some of the pressed juice back into the mix to achieve a specific flavor profile.
Fermentation
At this point in our journey through the vinification process, we have two vats: One filled with a mixture of red grape juice, skins, seeds and sometimes stems, and the other filled just with white grape juice.
To turn this juice to wine, we need the vital process of fermentation, in which yeasts consume the natural grape sugars and transform them into alcohol.
These yeasts can be wild (occurring naturally on the surface of the grapes as a light powdery film) or cultured. As wild yeasts are a little more unpredictable, vintners usually opt for the latter.
Fermentation stops when the sugar runs out, or the alcohol level reaches a level too high for the yeasts to survive. If a wine is lacking in sugar, vintners sometimes add extra in a procedure called “chaptalization” in order to bump up the alcohol level. Wines too low in alcohol can lack body, and as alcohol has a preservative effect, are also at greater risk of spoilage.
As mentioned earlier, primary fermentation for red wine occurs during maceration, when juice is still combined with the skins and seeds. Afterwards the must is pressed to remove the skins and seeds, and the process for red and white wines converges once again.
After primary fermentation wines then undergo a secondary ‘malolactic’ fermentation, which transforms tart and sour malic acids into softer, smoother lactic acids. Lactic acids, which are those found in dairy, are what impart that rich buttery quality to white wines.
Fun fact: Not all white wines undergo malolactic fermentation - whether or not it’s necessary depends on the region and the grape!
Clarification
Finally, we have wine.
Except it’s opaque, kind of hazy, filled with yeast particles, precipitates, and other natural sediment. Winemakers allow the newly made wine to rest for a few weeks, during which the sediment settles to the bottom of the tank. Then, winemakers draw off the wine into another container in a process known as racking, or siphoning, leaving the thick sediment (pomace) at the bottom of the tank.
Some winemakers choose to clarify their wine even further by filtering, or using a process called “fining”. They add certain compounds like egg white or clay, which force microscopic particles in the wine to precipitate, and again sink to the bottom of the vat to be drawn off once more, resulting in crystal clear see-through wine.
Aging and bottling
Some wines are meant to be drunk very almost immediately, but most wines in Burgundy are aged before bottling, a decision that rests with the vintner. Typically, reds spend 12-24 months aging, and whites 8-16.
Aging wines in oak barrels imparts additional aromas, flavors, and textures to the wine, like smooth oak tannins, and notes of spice, toast, vanilla, and clove. It also allows for a very slow introduction of oxygen into the wine, smoothing the tannin profile further.
The alternative aging vessels are stainless steel vats, which impart no flavor and preserve the fresh fruit flavors of a wine, simply allowing more pleasant and complex flavors to develop and mature in the wine.
After maturing, the wine is poured into labeled bottles, which are then prepped for the next phase in their journey - distribution!