Carbonic Maceration Explained Simply

Ep 164

What if one of the biggest wine buzzwords is actually much simpler than it sounds?

If you've ever heard the term carbonic maceration and thought, "What in the world does that mean?" trust me, you're not alone. Honestly, I put off covering this topic for a while because I felt the same way. But once I dove into the research, I realized it's actually much simpler than it sounds. 

In this episode, you'll learn exactly what carbonic maceration is, how it differs from traditional fermentation, why it became synonymous with Beaujolais, and why so many modern natural winemakers continue to embrace the technique.  You'll also discover the differences between carbonic maceration, semi carbonic maceration, and whole cluster fermentation without getting lost in complicated wine science.

So, if you've ever seen "carbonic" on a wine label and wondered what it actually means, this episode will give you the confidence to understand the technique, recognize the flavors it creates, and know exactly what to expect before you open the bottle.

Carbonic Wine Recommendations:

Beaujolais:

• The “Gang of Four” - Jean Foillard Morgon, Marcel Lapiere Morgon, Guy Breton Morgon, Jean-Paul Thevenet Morgon
• Bernard Diochon Moulin-à-Vent “Vieilles Vignes”
• Nicole Chanrion Côte-de-Brouilly
• Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau (look for it around Thanksgiving time)

Washington:

• Latta Wines 2023 Lucius Wines Carbonic Syrah
• COR Cellars Carbonic Primitivo
• Devium Wines Dwelley Dolcetto
• Sage Rat Carbonic Nebbiolo

California:

• Terah Wine Co. Carbonic Sangiovese
• Las Jaras Glou Glou

Other:

• Gran Moraine Flavorscape Gamay Noir (Oregon)
• Niepoort - Nat'Cool Drink Me Tinto (Portuguese blend)
• Gevorkian Ariats Kangoun Carbonic Karasi

Wines of Armenia: https://winesofarmenia.com/

Episode Highlights:

• What carbonic maceration actually means
• Why carbonic wines are not carbonated
• How carbonic differs from traditional fermentation
• Carbonic vs semi carbonic maceration
• Whole cluster fermentation explained
• Why carbonic wines taste so fruity 
• Why Beaujolais became famous for carbonic wines
• The history behind the technique
• Common aromas created through carbonic maceration
• Recommended wines to try from around the world

Transcript

0:09

Interested in learning about wine but not sure where to start. You're in the right place. Welcome to the Cork and Fizz Guide to Wine podcast. I'm your host, Hailey Bohlman, and I'm so glad you're here. I'm a wine enthusiast turned wine educator and founder of the Seattle based wine tasting business, Cork and Fizz. It is my goal to build your confidence in wine by making it approachable and lots of fun. You can expect to learn everything from how to describe your favorite wine to what to pair with dinner tonight, and so much more. Whether you're a casual wine sipper or a total cork dork like myself, this podcast is for you. So grab yourself a glass and let's dive in foreign. Hello and welcome back to the Cork and Fizz Guide to Wine podcast. I am very excited for today's episode. Like, honestly, maybe excited isn't even the right word. I think I'm just very proud of this episode. This is a topic that I'll be honest, I've kind of put off for some time. And that's because I didn't quite understand it. And so, you know, somebody requested it and so I put in the research and now I feel very confident about what it is. And I'm excited to tell you. What we're talking about today is carbonic maceration. If you've ever heard this is a very like, it's very buzzword right now. I feel like a lot of wineries and a lot of wines are being made in this style and a lot of times, you know, it's being said like, oh, this is our carbonic sangiovesis, their carbonic game. And you just kind of look and you're like, what, What? What do you mean by that? What is that? And you might hear carbonic and think carbonated. No, it doesn't have bubbles. That's not what it refers to. So what the heck does it mean? It just sounds like this super geeky term when really it's making these like really approachable porch pounder style wines and the things just like, don't mesh well. After this episode, I am confident that you will know at least a little bit more about carbonic maceration. You might have to listen twice and I may repeat myself a little bit because it's one of those things that just like, it's simple once you hear it enough, but it can be overwhelming. Hopefully that makes sense. Anyway, enough blathering. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Let's get into this episode. Okay, so carbonic maceration. Let's talk about what is it. Carbonic maceration is a winemaking technique. And honestly, it's as ancient as winemaking itself. It's simply a way of making wine. Anyone can do it as long as you have the equipment. But it is most commonly tied to the region of Beaujolais in France. And we'll talk more about this later, but I want to talk about what it is first before we dive into the history and all that. Carbonic maceration is also known as carbo C A R B O in France or cabmak in Australia. It does not refer to bubbles. I know you hear the word carbonic in it, right? And that sounds like carbonated, but that carbonic in the name refers to the fact that carbon dioxide is used to make the wine, but the resulting wine is not carbonated. All right, so all of that can just mean it's not carbonated. No bubbles. This style is typically applied to lighter to medium bodied red wines. It can be used with white wines, but the result would be actually an orange wine because it has to use the skins of the grapes and it would be super phenolic, like tannic and really funky, like earthy and less fruity. I am going to recommend one white wine that I found. I have not tried it, but it seems like it's by a good producer and I'd be kind of curious to see what it's like. So maybe by the time this episode comes out, I will have tried it. Who knows? And carbonic maceration tends to lower acidity in the wines, which many white wines rely on that for like, good balance and flavor. So in general, carbonic maceration is going to be applied to red wines. Just a quick reminder, if you are not on my mailing list yet, what are you waiting for? I would love for you to join. When you do, you'll get a free shopping guide that has 15 of my favorite wines under $15. Head to corkandfizz.com, scroll down to the bottom, and there'll be a little section where you can join the mailing list. I send out a weekly newsletter filled with wine tips, recommendations, special offers, and so much more. Now let's get back to the show. Now, why do winemakers choose to use this style? And again, I promise I'm gonna get to how it works in just a second. But I feel like this kind of gives you an idea of like, what type of wine is made when they use this style. So winemakers will do this to create a light bodied, easy drinking, very perfumed Fruity wine that is meant to be drunk young, like essentially a porch pounder, or what people in the wine world call glue. Glue, like, it's just meant to be drank. It's lighter colored, lower acidity, not a lot of tannin. You also get a lot of these candied fruit aromas. Things like watermelon, Jolly Rancher, strawberry, sunburst, mango. Hi. Chew. And now these are aromas, okay? So this style does not make a sweet wine. It does not create, like, more sugar in the wine. It just creates these candied fruit aromas. This style is also very embraced by the natural leaning winemakers because it is a very natural way of making wine. It's kind of one of those where, like, you do something, you let it go, you forget about it, it does its thing. And honestly, as much as, like, carbonic maceration might sound intimidating, it does make wine more fun and approachable because it's low tannin, so you don't get that, like, drying sensation in your mouth. It's lower acidity. So it's not like, you know, like a razor blade to the tongue. And it's nice and fresh and fruity. And you can chill these red wines a little bit, and you can have them just out on the porch with your friends. And it. That's the kind of wine it makes. Other reasons that winemakers might choose to do carbonic maceration is that it helps decrease naturally high levels of malic acid, which is the natural acid in grapes, kind of like the acid you'd get from a green apple. So it tends to produce softer wines. It also decreases the tannins. Right. So again, softer wines, it can create a blending component. So maybe they only do it with a portion of the grapes, and then they do natural or normal fermentation with the others. So then they have a little blending situation going on, and then it adds those aromas. Remember, those kind of candied fruit aromas. This is really great for varietals or grapes that don't have a lot of natural aroma to them, though. The flip side of this and that I think is important to know is that it can override the natural fruit character in the grape. So if you have a grape that's known for a certain, you know, flavor or aroma, and you use carbonic maceration, you might lose that aroma. And instead it's going to create those ones that I was talking about, those kind of candida fruit aromas. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Right. That's just good to keep in mind. Okay, so now that we know carbonic Maceration, the type of wine that it's going to make, it's going to make something that's light and fresh and fruity, and it's usually a red wine. Let's talk about how the winemaker does this. Now, before we get into how carbonic maceration works, let's talk about normal fermentation. So regular making wine. If you've been listening to this podcast, this is just gonna be repetition. But if you're new here, let me tell you about it. Generally, when we're making wine, you're gonna go pick the grapes, they're gonna get de stemmed, so they're just gonna be taken off the stems, and then you're going to crush them. And again, we're talking about red wine here. So we pick the grapes de stem, we crush, then that, like crushed juice and skin and, you know, all of that of the grapes. You're going to add yeast to it, or there's yeast that exists on the outside of the grape skin. And what that yeast does is it eats the natural sugar in the grapes. When it eats the sugar, it produces alcohol and carbon dioxide, which. That'll come. That'll. That'll come up in a second. Just hold onto that. But basically, that's how we get grape juice to wine. The yeast eats sugar, produces alcohol and carbon dioxide. Right. This is our normal fermentation, carbonic maceration. That initial fermentation, the like initial creation of alcohol is not caused by yeast. Okay. This is the big difference. The other thing is that it happens inside the grape itself. Like, how cool is that? You don't crush the grapes. You actually keep the grapes whole. And this initial ferment happens inside the grape. It's intracellularly, the fancy word. It occurs intercellularly. And so basically, in order to make this happen, winemakers will take intact berries. So remember, we can. We're not crushing them. We're just going to take them. We're going to pick them. They might de stem them, they might not, but they're going to be whole grapes. And they put them into a vessel, usually like a tank. That's kind of what I'm picturing in my head. And they have no oxygen in the tank. And so in order to create that environment, they put the grapes in the tank, they seal it, and they add carbon dioxide. That carbon dioxide removes all the oxygen. And then what happens is that carbon dioxide breaks down the sugar and the malic acid, remember, the natural acid in the grape from within the grape itself. So the carbon dioxide breaks down sugar and Malic acid, and it produces alcohol. Like, how cool is that? Also a range of compounds that affect the wine's final flavor. And I'll actually talk about what those specific compounds are in a little bit. But then we'll be getting too much in the weeds. So let's focus on this. First we have our sealed vessel. We've got our full, Right, non crushed grapes, and we've got carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide now has broken down the sugar and that malic acid in the grape, and it's producing alcohol and different flavors. Then the polyphenols in the grape, which is essentially the tannins and anthocyanins that exist on the grape skin go into the pulp, into the juice of the grape, and it causes that white flesh of the grape to turn pink. Now, once the alcohol percentage reaches 2%, so we're not getting very high in this 2%, the grapes burst. There's, like, too much happening inside the grape, and so it bursts. And then at that point, normal fermentation will finish the job. All right, so that's. It's honestly simpler. I don't know why I kept putting this off and was so intimidated by it. It's really, really simple. In order to do carbonic maceration, you have the full grapes, you put them inside a tank. You seal that tank, you add carbon dioxide, so it removes all the oxygen. And then the first fermentation will occur inside the grape, and it'll be caused by the carbon dioxide, not yeast. And then it produces all these really funky, unique flavors. Now, remember I told you I was gonna tell you what those flavors exactly were and what those compounds were? All right, we're gonna dive into the science. We're gonna get a little geeky here real quick. So the compounds that are created and the aromas associated with them include benzaldehyde. This creates aromas of cherry cloud kirsch, or almond. You get vinyl benzene, which actually creates this, like, kind of plasticky aroma, which is where you get that, like, candied fruit flavor, right? It's not just like, fresh fruit. It's candied. It actually comes from this, like, plasticky kind of flavor or plasticky kind of aroma. It also produces ethyl cinnamate, which has aromas of cinnamon, strawberry, or honey. Ethyl and methyl vanillate, which, surprise, surprise, that creates the aroma of vanilla. Ethyl 9 decimate. This creates this sweet kind of fruity again, a little bit of that candied fruit situation. And one octanol, which is an almond buttery aroma. Now, this style of Winemaking was first documented by Louis Pasteur in 1872. Yes, the guy behind pasteuration. Makes sense, huh? He was also really big into winemaking. He's, you know, he's a scientist, and winemaking involves a lot of science. And he would advise winemakers on the science of wine and help when issues arose. And he noticed that grapes kept in carbon dioxide tasted different than those kept in normal conditions. Now, they didn't really do much with this at that point. The guy that's actually credited with discovering true carbonic maceration is a French scientist named Michel Flanzy. He used carbon dioxide to preserve grapes and realized that it caused a reaction in the grapes themselves. So Pasteur, he noticed the wines tasted different. He knew something was going on. But Flanzi was the one who actually realized that the reaction happened in the grapes themselves. The style of winemaking, though, wouldn't really start to gain traction until the 1960s. At this time, there's a negociant and chemist Jules Chauvet. He's also credited as being the grandfather of natural wine for many people. So this Jules Chavet, he made great strides in semicarbonic maceration. And I'm going to get to that at the end of this episode. Don't worry. But just know that it's very, very similar to carbonic maceration. But he did this with the Gamay grape that was grown in the granite soils of Beaujolais in France. Remember, at the beginning of this episode, I said carbonic maceration is often tied to Beaujolais. This is why, because this Guy Chauvet, he started making the style of wine from the Gamay grapes in Beaujolais. Following this, in the 1970s, you had four winemakers. Marcel Lapierre, Jean Folliard, Jean Paul Sevignet, and Guy Breton. You'll actually hear these names come up later in the wines that I recommend for you. But these four winemakers were commonly known as the Gang of Four, and they began using carbonic maceration in their winemaking to create lighter wines. But even then, this style of wine wasn't popularized in Beaujolais until Georges Dubois began popularizing the famous Beaujolais nouveau. If you've not had Beaujolais Nouveau, this is the wine made from Gamay in Beaujolais. It uses carbonic maceration or semi carbonic, and it's sold just weeks after it's fermented. So it's typically available in the US Around Thanksgiving time. And it's very popular for this, like, bubblegum banana flavor, which is very common with the carbonic style. And so a lot of people associate carbonic maceration with Beaujolais because of just how popular it was. And like these flavors, they first discovered them in this Beaujolais Nouveau, so they thought it had to do with that region and that grape, but really it's the style of winemaking. So since the success of this style in Beaujolais, more winemakers around the world have been using it, and so they can create those flavors as well by using this style of winemaking. And what's interesting is some winemakers in Beaujolais have actually gone back to the regular fermentation style, claiming that carbonic maceration is a post industrial invention and doesn't express terroir, which honestly, I kind of, I kind of agree with them. It doesn't really express the sense of place. Remember how I talked about it kind of masks or overwhelms the natural flavors of the grapes and instead produces those flavors that are common with carbonic maceration. And so I think while that style of winemaking is tied to this region, if they want to get the flavors of Beaujolais, you might not want to use, or at least not use full carbonic maceration. Now, even if this is the case, if it's this post industrial invention, blah, blah, blah, this style is now embraced by many natural leaning winemakers because it creates this really easy drinking glue. Glue. It's wines that are meant to be. And when I say glue glue, I should say that it's G L, O, U. I'm not saying G L, U E like there's a reason behind it. I think it's. It has something to do with the French language, I'm pretty sure. But glue, glue just kind of means, like porch pounder. Honestly, it creates these really nice wines that are meant to be consumed young. And again, they can be made without a lot of intervention. You just kind of like set it up and let it go. Now, I'll share some wines to try at the end of this episode, so keep listening in. Wait. I know you think this is an ad, but it's not, so don't hit Skip. I have a small favor to ask. Here's the truth. I will never charge you to listen to this show, but every episode takes time and money to create. So if this podcast has helped you pick a better bottle, learn something new, or just kept you company, would you consider becoming a paid subscriber? You can show your Support for just 3, 5, 8, or $10 a month to say thanks. Every single supporter gets a shout out on the next episode I record. And if you choose the $10 tier, you actually get to pick a future episode topic. Setting up a subscription is a great way to show your love for the show. Just click the link in the description right now. Thank you for listening, supporting, and being part of my wine loving community. Now, let's get back to the show super quick. Let's cover some similar styles to carbonic maceration, because I think this is where I was getting a little lost and a little overwhelmed. There is a difference between carbonic and semi carbonic maceration, though many winemakers will still use a semicarbonic winemaking process and call it carbonic maceration. The biggest difference. So remember carbonic maceration, you have the full grapes, you're not crushing them, they're full grapes. You put them in a tank, you seal it, you add carbon dioxide. Right. The main difference with semicarbonic is that you put those whole grapes in the tank, but you don't add carbon dioxide. And instead you almost let the grapes themselves create the environment. So here's, here's what happens, and this is what's really cool. The grapes at the bottom of that tank are crushed by the weight of all the grapes above them. So they're crushed, they create juice. That juice combines with the yeast on the skins of those grapes and it goes through a regular fermentation. Now remember, regular fermentation is sugar plus yeast. So that yeast eats all the sugar and it produces alcohol and carbon dioxide. What do you think that carbon dioxide does now? Right. So the carbon dioxide travels up the grapes in the middle and the top of the tank remain intact. They don't get crushed, and they go through the true carbonic maceration with that CO2 that was created from the grapes at the bottom. How cool is that? Now, semicarbonic maceration in this style will create less distinctive flavors than a full carbonic maceration, but it'll still produce some of those funky flavors. Now, you may also hear the term horizon whole cluster winemaking. I know for me, this was one where I was like, okay, isn't that the same thing as carbonic? We're taking the whole cluster meaning like the grapes and you know, like, if you were to just go pick it off the vine and then, you know, do something with it, that sounds a lot like carbonic, doesn't it? It's not quite the same thing. Carbonic maceration is a type of whole cluster winemaking, but it's a specific type of basically whole cluster winemaking refers to throwing the entire grape Budge into a vat for winemaking, you essentially skip the de stemming process. You might leave the grapes whole, you might crush them. The VAT where the fermentation happens might be open, might be closed. If the grapes are whole and the vat is closed, carbonic maceration might happen. Or more specifically, semicarbonic maceration might happen. Remember, because we're not adding the CO2, but whole cluster simply means what it sounds like. The entire grape cluster is added to the fermentation vat to make the wine stems and all. Carbonic maceration, remember, happened specifically in a sealed vessel. No oxygen, with whole grapes, no juice, and added carbon dioxide. Hopefully that kind of clears it up for you on what carbonic maceration is and how it differs from semicarbonic and whole whole cluster. Now, let's talk about a few wines that you should try starting off some famous or popular Beaujolais wines to try. So again, these are the grapes made with Gamay from the Beaujolais region of France. Now, again, remember those, the gang of four, those four French names I said earlier, they still have wineries that are making these semi carbonic styles of Beaujolais today. So. And a lot of them are popular for their Morgonne. This is a region in Beaujolais, so think about it where it just kind of gets like deeper and deeper. So Morgan is a region in Beaujolais, which is a region in France. So if you look for Jean Foyard, Marcel Lapierre, Guy Breton, Jean Paul Sevenet, Morgon, all these will have that nice semi carbonic style. I'm going to drop all these in the show notes as well because if you're like, I do not know what you're saying. Also, I might not be pronouncing each of these totally correctly. I do not speak any French, so it's just a. It's just a guess. Up here. Some other ones to try. Bernard Diochon, Mulion, Avent Villas Vinnes, which basically just means old vines. Nicole Chanarion, Cote de Rouille, and of course, the Georges Duboff Beaujolais Nouveau. Look for that around Thanksgiving time. Outside of Beaujolais, there are many winemakers using this style. And what I'm most familiar with are Washington winemakers using this style. So I have some recommendations from here in Washington. Latte wines, they make a carbonic Syrah which is actually labeled with their second label, Lucius Wine. So L U C I U S. Their 2023 Lucious Wines Carbonic Syrah is available right now on their website. Core seller, C O R has a carbonic primitivo. Might be sold out, but you might be able to find it in some wine shops around the area. This comes out of the Columbia Gorge Devium wines D E V I U M they have a Dolcetto that uses carbonic maceration. And then Sedrat, who the winemaker will actually be on a future episode coming up here, has a carbonic nebbiolo that they do in collaboration with Sonder. It's the wine if you've ever seen it. It has a cat eating a watermelon. So I've heard it called the watermelon cat wine. So if you've ever seen that in a wine shop, that is carbonic maceration at work. There's also some really good ones out of California, just to name a couple. Terra Wine Co. Has a carbonic Sangiovese. Las Jaras. J A R A S has a wine that's actually called Glouglou like G L O U G L O U. And the exact blend of this changes from vintage to vintage, but it typically combines Zinfandel, Carignan, Petite Syrah and again uses the carbonic maceration style. A few others just from all around the world, we have the Grand Moraine Flavorscape Gamay Noir. Coming out of Oregon, Naiport has a not cool called Drink Me. This Red is a Portuguese blend that uses semi carbonic maceration. Then remember I told you there was gonna be a white wine that I'd recommend? This is a. Not that I'd recommend, but that I found and I think you should try if you get a chance just. Cause it's like fun to think about this style being used with white wine. And that's not very common. This is the one that comes out of Armenia. It is Djivorkian Ariet Kangwan Carbonic Karassi. So it is a dry natural white wine made by the Jivorkian Winery using the indigenous Kangan grape. It stands out because it combines carbonic maceration and aging in the traditional Armenian Karases, which are these large clay amphorae. You can find that wine on winesofarmenia.com now of course, there are many more and I highly recommend heading to a small wine shop asking if they have any wines made with carbonic maceration and just going from there. All right. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Cork and Fizz Guide to Wine podcast. I'm super proud of this one. So it would mean a lot to me if you enjoyed it too. Let me know. Did you learn something? I really hope I was able to break down this kind of complicated, complicated term and make it much more approachable for you. Of course. If you would like to show your support, please rate this podcast, leave a review, share it with a friend, and if you want to show additional support, you can become a paid subscriber. You can click the link in the show notes and become a monthly supporter for$10 or less a month. You'll get a shout out in the next episode no matter which option you choose. Well, the next episode I record. Plus if you choose the $10 a month option, you get to choose a topic for a future episode. In next week's episode, I will be diving into the Columbia Gorge region. I took a trip there earlier this year and I figured it deserved a full, full episode. On the podcast we talked about visiting, talking about the history of the region, all that good stuff. Thanks again for listening. And if you want to learn more about wine, come follow me at Cork and Fizz on Instagram. Cheers.