Grape Skin
The outer skin of the grape berry, separated from or held in contact with the juice and pulp. Rich in color pigments (anthocyanins in dark grapes and catechins in pale ones), tannins, and aromatic phenolics, the skin carries much of the flavor, color, and structure that distinguish grape-based drinks. It also hosts the wild yeasts that first made spontaneous fermentation possible.
How grape skin is prepared
Grape skins govern the color and tannin of red, rosé, and orange (skin-contact white) wines through maceration; the leftover skins are watered down to make the light drink piquette, or fermented and distilled into pomace brandies such as grappa, marc, tsipouro, and grape rakia.
Preparing an ingredient using heat.
French oak and red-wine grape skins are cooked at very high temperatures; no numeric temperature is given.[7]
Service signal Works as a liquid component.
In depth
Origins in the Caucasus and the discovery of skin fermentation
The connection between grape skin and drink is as old as wine itself. Wild yeasts settle naturally on the waxy surface of the grape, so when early cultivators in the Middle East and the South Caucasus crushed their fruit, the skins carried the microbes that turned sugar into alcohol. The oldest known evidence of winemaking comes from present-day Georgia, around 6000 BCE, with the earliest excavated winery found in Armenia not long after. In these traditions the skin was never an afterthought: leaving it in contact with the juice was simply how fermentation happened, and the practice of macerating crushed skins in their own liquid became the foundation of the whole craft.[1]
Skin contact and the colors of wine
As winemaking matured, vintners learned that the skin, not the juice, decides a wine's color and much of its character. The juice of even dark grapes runs nearly clear, so red wine gets its hue, tannin, and structure only by soaking the crushed fruit with its skins during fermentation. A brief maceration of red grapes yields rosé, its pale pink coming from a few hours of contact before the skins are drawn off. White wine, by contrast, is made by moving the juice away from the skins quickly, or by pressing pale-skinned grapes whose skins carry no red pigment at all. Winemakers manage skin contact deliberately, since too long on pale skins turns a white bitter and astringent.[1]
Orange wine: the ancient Georgian skin-contact tradition
One of the oldest continuous uses of grape skin in beverages is the making of skin-contact white wine, now widely called orange or amber wine. Here white grapes are fermented on their skins for weeks or even months, in the manner of red wine, drawing color, phenolics, and tannin from the skins to produce a deliberately astringent, amber-toned drink. The method has deep roots in Georgia, where wines were traditionally fermented in buried clay qvevri, and in the Kakheti region skin-contact whites were the standard style. Though Soviet-era industrial cellars pushed the practice toward the margins, it endured in households and revived after 1991, later spreading through Italian and Slovenian winemakers who carried Georgian vessels and ideas home. Similar skin-fermented whites were also common in Italy into the mid-twentieth century.[2]
Piquette: a thrifty drink from pressed skins
Long before pomace was prized, it was simply too valuable to waste. Once grapes had been pressed for wine, the leftover skins still held sugar and flavor, and adding water to them produced a thin, faintly wine-like beverage. The ancient Greeks and Romans made exactly this drink, known to them as lora, soaking the twice-pressed skins in water and pressing again to give a weak, watery “wine” for slaves and field laborers. Under the French name piquette, the practice continued for poor farmers and farmhands well into the twentieth century, and European regulations still define it as the product of fermenting or leaching grape pomace with water — traditionally a drink for the grower's own household rather than for sale.[3]
Pomace brandy: distilling the leftover skins
The most widespread second life of grape skin is distillation. After pressing, the mass of skins, seeds, stems, and pulp — the pomace, or marc — can be fermented and distilled into a clear, usually unaged spirit. This family of pomace brandies spans much of Europe under many names: grappa in Italy, marc in France, orujo in Spain, bagaceira in Portugal, tsipouro and tsikoudia in Greece, and chacha in Georgia. In red-wine regions the pomace is already fermented and alcohol-rich, making it especially suited to the still; white-wine pomace is fermented to completion before distilling. Born as a way to extract value from winemaking waste, these spirits became cultural fixtures in their own right.[4]
Grappa and the Italian after-dinner tradition
Italy's grappa is the best-known of the skin-based spirits, a fragrant pomace brandy distilled from the skins, pulp, seeds, and stems left after pressing. Under European Union rules it must be made in Italy (or Italian Switzerland and San Marino) from pomace, with fermentation and distillation carried out on the solids and no water added. Because the woody parts ferment alongside the juice-rich residue, distillation must be done gently by water bath or steam rather than direct flame, both to avoid scorching and to remove unwanted compounds. First made in the Italian Middle Ages to prevent waste, grappa is served as a digestivo after heavy meals, stirred into espresso as caffè corretto, or sipped alongside the coffee. Italian emigration carried it to Argentina and Uruguay, where a honeyed winter version called grappamiel emerged.[5]
Grape rakia and Greek pomace spirits across the Balkans and Aegean
In southeastern Europe the grape-skin spirit takes the form of rakia, the collective name for the region's fruit brandies. While plum is a signature base, grapes and grape pomace are equally traditional: grape rakia goes by names such as grozdova in Bulgaria and lozovača or loza across the former Yugoslavia, while pomace-based versions are called dzhibrova, komovica, and šljôkavica. In Greece the same idea produces tsipouro on the mainland and tsikoudia on Crete, both distilled from the pressed residue of the winepress. Cretan tsikoudia is single-distilled and unflavored, made under seasonal home-distilling permits and tied to island hospitality, while tsipouro is typically double-distilled and sometimes flavored with anise. Across the region these spirits are woven into meze culture, ritual observance, and everyday social drinking.[6]
References
- [1]EncyclopediaWine — Wikipedia↑§1↑§2
- [2]EncyclopediaOrange wine — Wikipedia↑§3
- [3]EncyclopediaPiquette — Wikipedia↑§4
- [4]EncyclopediaPomace brandy — Wikipedia↑§5
- [5]EncyclopediaGrappa — Wikipedia↑§6
- [6]EncyclopediaRakia — Wikipedia↑§7
- [7]Producerhttps://www.non.world/products/non9-oaked-blackberry-plum↑prepared