A New Technique for Exploitation of Wine Lees

The possibility of obtaining high quality wine from lees could increase value added for farm productions. A new technique introduced on an industrial scale to provide wine from lees of different origin is presented. After racking, the lees are collected in an innovative steel system and processed in controlled conditions of temperature, micro-oxigenation and cycles of remixing. During the treatment, an increase of color intensity, total polyphenols and total polysaccharides of wine from the lees was detected while the hue was stable. The obtained results indicate that the proposed method could be an effective tool for exploitation of the lees on winery scale. The new technology strongly reduced the time necessary to reach positive oenological objectives.