Soutirage is known as racking in English. After the wine has fermented the tank or barrel will contain the lees (dead yeast cells) and sediment. The yeast fermented the wine, lees have added flavour and some antibacterial properties but if left in contact with the wine they will start to add off flavours, cloud the wine and generally hinder the final wine. The process is carried out as gently as possible, using gravity rather than electrical pumps.
So on April 6th Jeff messaged me to say that the day had arrived to carry out soutirage of the wine I made for my 100th blog post and the vendanges tardives Grenache we picked on the last day of the vendanges.
We started with the Grenache. A tube was placed into the stainless steel tank, suction applied and the wine flowed gently into large 15l bottles. Jeff chose clear bottles so that he can watch the progress of the wines. They will be stored in his cellar in the dark so no problems from light damage. The Grenache still contained some residual sugar, was sweet, fresh and clean.
It was appropriate that we also racked the maceration white wine. Cameron had taken the lead on this wine and he was here after attending La Remise, the natural wine salon in Arles, I’ll be writing about soon. The wine was fresh, lots of fruit and also a light texture from the 4 month maceration. Very good.
And then the 3 Grenaches wine I took charge of. Most of this has been aged in barrels so the soutirage ended with them being emptied of their sediment.
There wasn’t that much sediment as the small vertical press I used controlled what entered the barrels, ie mainly juice. Naturally we had to top up those barrels after soutirage to replace the volume taken away. And now they continue their gentle ageing. I am very happy with the progress of the Grenaches, again more soon.
Traffic light wines
A fascinating day, another new process in winemaking for me to learn.
amarchinthevines 
April 7, 2016 at 4:59 pm
A great article and great pics/media. But you and I are oddly on the same wavelength sometimes. I have just blogged about a wine which may be the cloudiest I have ever drunk, and deliberately so. Wonder what Jeff would make of it?
My accomplice also bottled 18 btls of our white today. He says he tried some and managed to keep it down. Can’t wait to try it.
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April 7, 2016 at 5:38 pm
Moon descending, higher pressure – a good day for bottling 🙂
I drank a very cloudy Georgian wine at Christmas which I loved. I think cloudiness is perhaps misused as a guide to quality. Funnily enough we have been discussing wine faults a lot recently, and how they can give natural wines a bad name. Jeff’s wines are clear except for one white, Snow Balls named after its fault. More about faults to come in a few posts time 🙂
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