practiceCold soak
also: Pre-fermentation maceration · Macération à froid
Chilling the crushed fruit and holding it below fermentation temperature for days before the yeast start. Water pulls colour and aroma out of the skins; alcohol has not arrived yet to pull tannin.
How it is done Tradition
Three to six days near 10 °C, usually under dry ice or a blanket of CO₂ to keep spoilage organisms and oxygen out. Whether it does what its advocates claim is one of the livelier arguments in a pinot cellar.
Facts
| kind | ferment |
|---|---|
| region | The world |
| confidence | medium · updated 2026-09-16 |
Its kin
practiceWhole clusterA decision taken at the same moment, on the same fruit.practiceNative yeastCold soak lasts until something starts the ferment — which is where this comes in.and of this page it says: What ends a cold soak, if nobody intervenes.
Who points back
Sources
- Maceration (wine) · link
Where it came from: Cited a source we name · Harvested pulled from an open dataset · Tradition what the tradition says, hedged · Inference this project's reasoning · Field somebody stood there. This record as JSON.