Hi Brian, you’re quite right to be confused, that was not made clear in the article. The methods described above pertain to aging on the fine lees as this is the more common form of sur lie aging.

A wine should be racked off the gross lees after five to seven days. You can push this further but it’s a delicate process and you need to be ready to rack at the first sign of off flavors.

You are correct, in that you don’t really want to stir up the gross lees, especially if you plan on racking at the five to seven day mark as they likely won’t be settled out enough to get a clean racking.

Gross lees can settle out at different rates depending on the fruit and carbon dioxide production. I can imagine a situation with a vigorous yeast producing a lot of carbon dioxide and keeping the lees pretty well churned up.

In summary, I would sit on the gross lees for five to seven days, rack off of it, then proceed with the battonage schedule of stiring the fine lees.

Thank you for the question! I went back and edited the article to make it more clear what I’m talking about.

Cheers! -Matt