There are many common steps in the production of white Spätlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese, Trockenbeerenauslese, Eiswein and the Austrian Ausbruch. After the must has been gently pressed and clarified, the fermentation takes place either by means of adding breeding yeasts or spontaneously by wild yeasts on the grapes or from the environment. An enrichment of the must with sugar is prohibited. If the grapes have a very high sugar content, the fermentation often begins very slowly and breaks off at high residual sugar and low alcohol content, since sugar in combination with alcohol strongly inhibits the yeasts. Nevertheless, there are differences in vinification, which mostly affect late harvests and Auslesen. The reductive vinification, which is also often used in the production of ice wine, reduces the exposure to the atmospheric oxygen in order to avoid an oxidation of must repectively the wine and thus preserves better the fruit flavors better.
The duration of mashing, thus the time in which the freshly pressed must is in contact with the grape skins, can vary widely, some wine growers even prefer a duration of 12 or more hours. In most cases, the fermentation will be stopped, when the desired values of either residual sugar or the alcohol content has been reached. The stop is usually done either by strong cooling of the wine or by filtering off the yeasts or also by adding sulfur dioxide.Thus is done depending on the desired type of wine andapplies especially with late harvest and Auslese wines.
Especially in the case of Spätlesen with slightly residual sugar, there are also differences of the malolactic fermentation, the conversion of malic acid in the wine to lactic acid by bacteria, which makes the wine creamier and rounder. Some manufacturers allow this malolactic fermentation, others do not.