Racking (Soutirage)
Racking – soutirage in French – draws the clear wine off the sediment of yeast and lees that has settled in the vessel. It clarifies the wine, but it is more than mere cleaning: every racking also changes how much oxygen the wine receives and in what environment it continues to mature.
Soutirage is therefore less routine than steering – it can foster stability or create unrest, depending on timing and measure.
With the separation from the lees, the chemical and microbiological environment of the wine changes. What was previously buffered or bound by the yeast is redistributed. The wine becomes not only clearer but also more exposed.
More than clarifying
A common misconception sees racking as straightforward progress: more clarity equals more quality. It is not that simple. Especially early on, a racking can expose structure before it is supported – the wine then seems more precise, but also more fragile. Clarity is not only visual; a wine is not coherent when it is bright, but when it feels connected.
The role of oxygen
A racking almost always introduces some oxygen – not as a goal, but as a side effect. What matters is not whether oxygen enters, but how much and when. In moderation it can order tensions and dispel reductive notes, that is, aromas reminiscent of boiled egg or onion. In excess it can accelerate hidden weaknesses. At racking, the sulfur protection is often topped up as well, to secure the wine in its new, more open position.
How often a wine is racked depends on its type. Reds tolerate and usually need more oxygen and are racked more often, which rounds the tannin; many whites, by contrast, deliberately stay longer on the fine lees and are moved less often. And how the racking is done makes a difference: if it takes place under exclusion of air, for instance under inert gas, oxygen uptake can be almost entirely avoided; an open racking deliberately introduces air. This too depends on the goal.
Too early, too late
Both directions carry risks. A racking that comes too late, when the wine lies on the lees for a long time, can foster unrest or – if the environment tips – fix reductive notes in place. Here too, time is not an automatism but a condition that has to be observed. The right moment depends on the state of the wine, not on the calendar.
How we understand it
For us, racking is therefore an intervention in the course of development, not a cleaning step: intervening where an environment has fulfilled its task, and holding back where time does the better work. It separates in order to allow a new calm – or to make problems visible while they can still be corrected.