reductive winemaking, increasingly fashionable approach, especially for high-end Chardonnay, that is in part a response to premature oxidation and aims at reducing the exposure of must and wine to oxygen in the winery by minimizing or eliminating practices such as racking, lees stirring, and the use of new oak barrels. This is often done in combination with fermentation using ambient yeasts and tends to result in aromas and flavours of flint and struck match.
© Jancis Robinson and Oxford University Press 1994, 1999, 2006, 2015
