Skin contact is the process of allowing destemmed grape skins to macerate in the juice for a desired amount of time. At Navarro we generally avoid utilizing skin contact in white grape varieties; the skins contain flavor and aromatics but also phenolics that can add astringency to the juice. The astringency can be minimized by destemming cold grapes, but we've found that a little contact goes a long way and can quickly make the wine heavy and less elegant. Gewürztraminer is the only white varietal where we utilize skin contact to fashion a wine. A typical harvest scenario might be that we start picking when the first Gewürz grapes are 23.5° Brix and by the time we finish, the last grapes harvested are about 24.5° Brix.

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