Lees stirring for red wines: your experience?

[bdahl]

Hi,

New to winemaking - and to this lovely forum, which has already helped me find many answers and ideas.

I am trying to find input about lees-stirring for reds. My hypothesis is that applying this technique should develop body and mouthfeel, though there seems to be a tannin, fruit and intensity penalty. Whether "intensity" refers to color or overall flavour is not specified.

Very curious to have other people's input on this.
Have you tried? With what varietals and what is your experience?


My entire 2-month winemaking experience:
I have used fresh juice so far, I have a Barolo in its 2nd carboy (with Oak sticks), a chardonnay in it's first carboy, with fine lees and oak chips and a Pinot Grigio wrapping up primary. Actually, at 994, I think I'll just rack the Pinot Grigio now and enjoy that very slight residual sugar come summertime...

Cheers!

 

[Natrix]

Welcome to the forum neighbour !

 

[TonyR]

I dont think it will do anything good. Depends on type of lees. If you make wine from grapes you will have gross lees. Not good. Need to get wine off those soon. If from juice most of the lees will be just dead yeast cells. Fruit like blackberries has a lot of pulp that forms lees with the dead yeast cells. Again I dont think it will help or do GOOD things for your wine.

 

[sour_grapes]

Welcome to the forum!

Interesting question. Personally, I have never even heard of aging reds on the lees before. (Of course, whites are commonly aged sur lie.) I never noticed or thought about this discrepancy before. You seem to have some info on it; can you point us to any of your previous reading?

 

[sampvt]

The end Lees are dead cells that wont help in any way with flavour. They are important in the beginning and stirring them in can aid the release of certain flavours which promote mouth feel, but once fermentation is slowing down or has ended, they need getting rid of, hence the age old advice of racking.

If you want to add different elements of flavour when fermentation has ended, you need to look at fruits, barks, woods or other things that help, but the lees are of no use whatsoever.

 

[bdahl]

Thanks for the input!
For the sake of accuracy, I should explain that what I am looking into is stirring the fine lees that accumulate during the "secondary" fermentation, that is the wine's first trip into an airlocked carboy after primary fermentation has been completed, in a bucket, where the hydrometer reads 990.

When I racked the Chardonnay, I put the last drops of sludge (the thick stuff at the bottom of the primary bucket) into a bottle and let it settle, then shook it, then let it settle again. Not only did I get an extra cup of wine (250ml out of 900ml total), but in a glass the sample wine was extremely rich, creamy, almost fatty. The same effect I am looking to achieve with the wine itself.

The Barolo, previously racked without any of this, does not have this characteristic in the glass. Varietal characteristics set aside, I'd love to have some extra body in the Barolo for its younger days.

I suppose the best way to go is to get a new 23L batch of red, then split it up into 2 carboys, test and compare.

Any additional insight is quite welcome.

Cheers! (Geez, this winemaking gets expensive fast, doesn't it?) ;-)

 

[bkisel]

Welcome to the forum!

Have you tried googling "Sur lie and bâtonnage"?

 

[sour_grapes]

Tim Vandergrift is pretty assertive on NOT aging reds on the lees: https://winemakermag.com/924-sur-lie-wine-kits

t’s a technique for white wines only. The improvements it makes in white wines are mostly considered tragic and irredeemable flaws in reds.

Winemaker's Academy is a bit less dogmatic: http://winemakersacademy.com/sur-lie-aging-explained/

As the proteins are released they bind with tannins in the wine. This is good for a white wine as you don’t want tannins in a white. However, for a red wine this can be problematic as it is the tannins that go a long way in determining the aging potential of the wine.

For this reason red wines are usually not aged this way while white wines often are. The deciding factor depends upon the intentions of the wine maker.

 

[stickman]

There is a lot more to this issue than what has made it to the average home winemaking book. As usual there is no right answer, there are many different opinions about how and when lees are beneficial for a red wine. I've read about wineries that initially rack red wines clean to avoid off odors and to allow some small amount of oxygen contact. A red wine builds structure better without lees initially, but these wineries save the fine clean lees and introduce them back to the wine 6 months later once the wine's structure has been built. There are even some enzymes that are used to aid in the breakdown of the lees so they will release their contents at a faster pace; this can be added to the storage tank of lees. Unfortunately the same compounds that the lees release that are responsible for coating tannins and improved mouth feel, are also nutrients for microbes to feed on, so lab monitoring for living organisms in barrels during aging is typical for a winery, difficult for the home winemaker. I have never really experimented with the technique as I always felt it was too much risk for a tank of wine, but maybe after treating a carboy of lees that could then be used for some trials.........

View attachment PDS_Extralyse.pdf

 

[bdahl]

Very interesting indeed. I have also been reading from French resources that the technique, somewhat abandoned in the 60s, experienced a resurgence around 2000. While far from unanimous, the goal is similar to what I am looking for: a rounded, smooth, fatty wine that will be more palatable in its younger days.

Found some input from some people in Rhône, and others in France who, using Syrah, tested 2 approaches to this (here) and concluded that no significant loss resulted from bâtonnage, though slight differences were noticeable and a decrease in astringency was observed. The one with more lees was rounder, with slightly paler color where the one with less lees had more "intense" sensations and a more detectable wood presence. Both samples were found to conform to general stylistic expectations, presumably referring to the AOC's typicalities.

I also found that there are more than one references suggesting that the yeast strain had an impact on the quality of the lees. (For more on that, check out the differences in the lees in the three samples shown here: 3 different strains of yeast used on Grenache.)

All in all, I suppose testing it myself will be the best way to find an answer. I love how there are no definitive answers in winemaking - I really mean that. Dealer's choice.

Thanks for your input and feel free to toss any new info or ideas onto the pot!

Cheers,