🍷 Lees
Dead yeast at the bottom after fermentation, which gives wine roundness.
Lees are the layer left at the bottom of a vessel after fermentation. It is mostly dead yeast cells and fine particles of grape. The French call it lie, and wine that rests on it for a long time is called "sur lie".
Contact with the lees can be useful. During ageing the yeast cells slowly break down and release substances that make the taste rounder and slightly creamy and add notes of bread and nuts. The lees also consume oxygen and so help protect the wine from oxidation, although this ability weakens during very long ageing.
To build a richer taste, the lees are sometimes stirred back into the wine. This is called bâtonnage.
When the wine is ready, it is taken off the lees: in racking the clear wine is siphoned or pumped into another vessel, and the sediment stays behind.
How it connects to Wine
Links
- Previous step
- 🍷 Racking, 🍷 Concrete egg, 🍷 Decanting
- Next step
- 🍷 Bâtonnage
- What is made from it
- 🥃 Hefebrand
- Part of
- 🍷 Fermentation
Frequently asked questions
What are lees?
The layer of dead yeast and fine particles left at the bottom after fermentation.
Why age wine on its lees?
They make the taste rounder and softer and protect the wine from oxidation.
What is bâtonnage?
Stirring the lees in the vessel to build a richer taste.
What to read next
- 🥃 Hefebrand — Hefebrand, or lees spirit, is distilled from the yeast lees of wine, beer or fermented fruit must: EU category 12, distillation below 86% vol., at least 38% ABV (76 proof) in the bottle.
- 🍷 Decanting — Decanting is pouring wine slowly from its bottle into a decanter, to leave old-wine sediment behind and give young wine some air.
- 🍷 Concrete egg — An egg-shaped concrete vessel for fermenting and ageing wine, with smooth, cornerless walls.
Similar
🍷 Lees ageing · 🍷 Malolactic fermentation · 🍷 Alcoholic fermentation · 🍷 Racking cane (siphon) · 🧪 Wine adjustment and stabilisation · Noble mould on dry sausages
What it includes
Sources
- Wikidata Q162441
- EU Regulation 1308/2013, Annex VII Part II point 8 (wine lees)
- Advances in Wine Yeast Autolysis: Biochemical and Molecular Mechanisms (Compr Rev Food Sci Food Saf, 2026), PMC13032178
- Virginia Cooperative Extension, Wine Making for the Home Gardener (HORT-213)