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Fermentation Atlas

Alcoholic drinks from worldwide

Red winevin rouge

Red wine is made by fermenting crushed black grapes together with their skins, so the skins give the wine its colour and tannin. The wine is then pressed off the skins, usually goes through a second, bacterial malolactic fermentation, and is often matured in oak before bottling. Made in 7 steps over 9.2 months – 2 years. The longest step, mature, takes 9–22 months (Mercanti N. et al. 2026). Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Non-Saccharomyces yeasts early in fermentation do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step9–22 monthsReported[mercanti2026]Mature
Temperature5–15 °CReported[sternad2026][awri-coldsoak]Cold soak (optional)
AciditypH 3.3–3.5Reported[awri-mlf]Malolactic fermentation
Fully documentedAlcoholic drinks9.2 months – 2 yearsMore alcoholic drinks

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceCommercial practice with no single recipe. The sulphite amount is a guide dose per litre of must; everything else is grapes.
Black grapes (Vitis vinifera) · Destemmed and crushed; skins, pulp and seeds all go into the fermenter[vt-red]
Up to 50 mg/L totalSulphur dioxide (sulphite) · Added to the grapes at crushing; more can hold back the malolactic fermentation[awri-mlf][awri-coldsoak]
Yeast · Wild yeasts from the grapes and the cellar, or a selected Saccharomyces cerevisiae[tamang2016]
Malolactic bacteria · Oenococcus oeni, wild or added once the alcoholic fermentation is done[awri-mlf]
Starterspontaneous (wild yeasts) or a selected Saccharomyces cerevisiae; malolactic bacteria (Oenococcus oeni), wild or added

Total time across the recorded steps: 9.2 months – 2 years

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
shapes, not to countYeasts

What changes: The crusher splits the berries so juice, skins and seeds go into the vat together

Step 1 of 7
Harvest, destem and crush
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Yeasts
Saccharomyces
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Oenococcus oeni
Candida stellata

Output: must with skins and seeds.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

wild yeasts from the grape skins and the cellar enter the must

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

What makes this one different

In red wine the skins stay in the vat during the alcoholic fermentation, which is where the colour and tannin come from. White wine is pressed first and fermented as clear juice. Almost all reds also go through malolactic fermentation, which is optional in white wines.

Related ferments

Made the red wine way

Safety

Sulphur dioxide is the main additive. The OIV caps total SO₂ at 150 mg/L in dry red wine, and in the EU any food with more than 10 mg/L must be labelled as containing sulphites. Methanol comes from grape pectin; the OIV limit for red wine is 400 mg/L.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Eugene Hilgard at the University of California showed in 1887 that colour is extracted before tannin, and that colour peaks sooner at higher temperatures.

  1. [tamang2016] Tamang J.P., Watanabe K., Holzapfel W.H. 2016, Review - Diversity of microorganisms in global fermented foods and beverages, Frontiers in Microbiology 7:377, doi:10.3389/fmicb.2016.00377paper
  2. [sternad2026] Sternad Lemut M., Antalick G., Comuzzo P., Voce S. 2026, Traditional and emerging maceration techniques in red winemaking, Foods 15(14):2571, doi:10.3390/foods15142571paper
  3. [vt-red] Zoecklein B.W., Red wine production considerations, sections 2–3, Enology-Grape Chemistry Group, Virginia Techgov
  4. [awri-mlf] Australian Wine Research Institute 2020, Achieving successful malolactic fermentation (fact sheet, updated September 2020)other
  5. [awri-coldsoak] Australian Wine Research Institute, Winemaking treatment - cold soak (winemaking practices page)other
  6. [awri-ferm-temp] Godden P. 2021, Effects of fermentation temperature on red wine composition, Ask the AWRI, Grapegrower & Winemaker 690, and AWRI Fermentation temperature pageother
  7. [mercanti2026] Mercanti N. et al. 2026, Wine bottle refinement - a review of emerging aging strategies, Foods 15(7):1269, doi:10.3390/foods15071269paper
  8. [mas2014] Mas A., Torija M.J., García-Parrilla M.C., Troncoso A.M. 2014, Acetic acid bacteria and the production and quality of wine vinegar, The Scientific World Journal 2014:394671, doi:10.1155/2014/394671paper
  9. [oiv-def] OIV, International Code of Oenological Practices, sheet I.3.1 Basic definition (wine)spec
  10. [oiv-coldmac] OIV, International Code of Oenological Practices, sheet II.1.15 Prefermentative cold maceration for making red wines (OENO 12/2005)spec
  11. [oiv-limits] OIV, International Code of Oenological Practices, Annex - Maximum acceptable limits (issue 2015/01) - total SO2 and methanol (OENO 19/2004)spec
  12. [eu1169] Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 on food information to consumers, Annex II item 12 (sulphur dioxide and sulphites above 10 mg/L)spec