Submitted by
CellarRat on Sat, 2006-10-28 10:59.
The pressed wine after being pressed and captured before pumping to barrel. This is the actual color lit by camera flash.)
Exactly two weeks to the hour after we destemmed the Pinot Noir from Wentzel Vineyard into bins for the Pinot 2.0 project, we were pressing the wine to barrel.
The cold soak and fermentation phases were absolutely textbook perfect for both bins with both bins taking about eight days to complete fermentation after a five-day cold soak. I’ll have video of all this up soon in the Pinot 2.0 video series.
The pressing process is pretty simple: (Local SF Rat Packers at right, pressing photos below)
- You drain the free run juice, actually wine now, into the barrel to fill it 80% full
- You then load the remaining pumace (skins/seeds/remaining wine) into the press.
- You press the wine... In this case we are using a bladder press that inflates a membrane to press the pumace against a wall with holes in it that allows the presed wine to escape.
- You slowly bring the pressure exerted up as the wine that is pressed through the holes gets increasingly tannic from the seeds, stems, and skins releasing their tannins. You also get a little sugar that comes from the pressed skins as well, so the pressed wine can seem slightly more in balance than the free run juice which is tart from the acid that will be softened by the soon-to-happen secondary fermentation.
- Once you've reached the maximum pressure you are going to apply (which is typically less with Pinot than other wines because you don't want to extract too many harsh tannins from the seeds) you pump the wine that has been captured from the pressing process (captured juice in banner at top) into the barrels to top them off. This results in each barrel having 80% free run juice, and 20% pressed juice. You want the tannins and other good stuff from the pressed wine in the barrel for mouthfeel and structure.
Images from Pressing night:
The bladder press
Pressed wine drains from slots in one side of the barrel shaped container
The one ounce of wine that was spilled that eve
Advice about drinking while working around machinery - - use plastic
Ty, at left, got us through sorting and crush, and then also pressed the Pinot 2.0 wine. Kian, CP winemaker, right.
Whole clusters that made it through fermentation pretty much intact
After pressing the pumace left behind is nothing but damp skin, seeds, and stems
This is the last hands-on work for a while, other than monitoring the wine while in barrel to make sure it is smelling clean, and staying topped up. The next major event is that secondary fermentation that will convert the Malic acid to softer Lactic acid. More on that soon. ab
Possibly joining your group
I am a Minnesota guy, who enjoys drinking wine and still wondering, why am I still in Minnesota. Looks like a fun group. I am a member of a Minnesota group that we are virgins in this process. We have a cabernet that will hopefully be bottled in 2008.