Hot stabulation of white musts : a summary of two years of trials on this new promising technique

Notable progress has been made in recent years on white and rosé winemaking practices (must protection against oxidation, maceration on lees, the use of non Saccharomyces yeast) The main objectives of these techniques is to enhance the intensity of positive aromatic notes as well as to reduce potential defects and off-flavours. 

In these practices, the consistent positive results of the maceration (or stabulation) on the lees during the production process are intuitively attributed to aromatic compound and aromatic precursor liberation from the lees themselves and/or grape berry polysaccharides and/or specific nutrients. Management difficulties of this technique (keeping a low temperature for several days and frequent turning overs), the almost inevitable increase in SO2 doses added in order to limit the risk of a spontaneous fermentations and the presence of thermovinification equipment in numerous production sites brought the team to hypothesize a new practice using similar techniques : could the effect achieved at several days at low temperatures be attained in a few hours at high temperatures ?

The first series of trials conducted revealed very interesting perspectives for 1.) the production of original wines that are very aromatically intense and 2.) the improvement of musts that are from unripe or defective white and rosé grapes.