A week after crushing the grapes and adding yeast to the must, it was time to press the mixture. The liquid is now wine. In order to extract more wine from the must, rice hulls were added to the must and stirred. Buckets were used to transfer the must from the fermentation bin to the bladder press. At first there was a lot of free run wine. This was the wine that went through the press without pressing. Everyone was surprised at how good the free run wine tasted.
Eventually the fermentation bin was empty and and the bladder was inflated. More juice ran from the bladder. As the juice ran, buckets of the wine were collected and poured into a barrel. The barrel was soon filled; extra wine was poured into a stainless steel tank. The barrel was moved into the barrel room where malolactic fermentation will take place and the wine will age for months.
A ninety-second video shows the process.
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