Racking

      Racking is the procedure that is part of the traditional process of maturing wine in barrels. The principal objective of racking, which concists of siphoning off the wine from one barrel to another, it to clarify the wine by separating it from the sediment, called lees, which has settled to the bottom of the barrel. At the same time, this allows the wine to give off excess CO2. If needed, the wine can also be aerated during  the raxking process, allowing a small amount of oxygen to be dissolved in the wine. 

Fermentation

      As we have already noticed, while a grape is a natural product, wine is not. Without man's intervention, the unavoidable fate of the grape, at the end of a long series of complex cheminal tranformations, would be: vinegar                                                                      

      Human interference during winemaking concists of controlling and manipulating these transformations. In this section, we briefly outline the principal changes that can take place during the winemaking process.

Ecological label

Alcoholic ( primary) fermentation

    The alcoholic fermentation is by itself a very complex sequence of transformations, which can be shown in a very simplified model as: C7H1206--yeast -->2CH3CG2OH+2 CO² which means that the yeasts convert the grape sugars into ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide gas. This reaction can only be carried out at a certain temperature(between 22 and 28° for red wine.          

      Known as "MLF" or simply "malo", this process converts tart malic acid, whose presence is often (but not always) considered as a fault, into softer-tasting lactic acid. It can hbappen  naturally,but to avoid any undesirable bacterial strains from producing of desirable lactic acid bacteria, which then start eating the malic acid.  1 malic -> 2 lactic + CO²

      The change to lactic acid gives the wine more body and roundness, improves the mouthfeel and the finich. It is used on most red wines ans some white wines, depending on the desired result, whether  one wishes a dry, fresh wine and some white wine ot  a fuller-bodied wine suitable for aging.

  

       International Vinalies of Paris
 http://www.vinalies-internationales.fr/fichiers/File/Reglement_ANG.pdf