Concentration

concentration, umbrella term for any winemaking operation which serves to remove volatile substances, mainly water, from grape juice or wine. Its most common application has been in the production of grape concentrate But a range of more sophisticated concentration techniques is increasingly used on grapes and musts, often only on a certain portion of the total must, in order to produce more concentrated wines, notably in some of bordeaux’s grandest cellars.

One component in a mixture can be concentrated using differences in boiling points, in freezing points, or in molecular size. The usual technique for making grape concentrate is to use differences in boiling points in a low-pressure, low-temperature evaporator. While very effective in concentrating sugar, this technique has the disadvantage of also removing volatile flavour compounds.