The Pressing

DAY THREE:  Evening...
The last week has been quite cold, but the must smells very potent – definitely something happening in there. The plan was to drain the free run juice/wine out of the bottom of the barrel and transfer it to another barrel . We had put a patch of muslin over the tap hole inside the barrel to filter the juice, but unfortunately this just got bunged up and stopped the tap working completely. So we just scooped the skins etc out by hand and with sieves and put them in the press.

Pressing was hard work (honest!), eventually producing a cake of pressed skins and stalks which was cleared out.

After several pressings, there was mostly just juice in the barrel. We scooped out the remaining skins with sieves and pressed them. Then we unscrewed the tap and let out the juice into a bucket. Our second barrel ended up about half full of the free run and press juice mixed together, around 110 litres? At this stage it tasted like watery wine – but it hasn't finished fermenting yet.

Preparation for pressing

DAY THREE: 28th September – AFTERNOON:

We finish cleaning and sterilizing all the bottles and the press. These are Italian carboys, which Rachel reckons hold about 57 litres.

We're not sure exactly how much wine we'll get, so a few smaller bottles and damigiani are sterilized aswell.

Start to get paranoid about cleanliness. Rachel's already had an anxiety dream about the wine going bad!

2010 Vintage

This blog is a diary of how my friend Rachel and I will be turning twenty crates of grapes into delicious red wine, using traditional Italian methods. Her father was an Italian chef who used to make his own wine at home using imported grapes from Italy. Rachel wants to keep up the family tradition, I want to learn the craft, and we both love red wine!

DAY ONE: 20th September 2010

The grapes arrive: twenty crates of Montepulciano D'Abruzzo in great condition considering the long journey from central Italy.

I calculate about 158kg of grapes, and they're delicious. They arrived quite late in the day so we arranged to crush the following day.

In the background the 210 litre fermenting barrel
drying after being sterilized.

DAY TWO: 21st September


With various children and neighbours assembled,
we begin crushing the grapes, appropriately enough under the canopy of grapes.



The bunches, stems 'n' all, are thrown into
the mangle type crusher perched directly on
top of the fermenting barrel.

Everything gets very sticky. At first juice leaks out down the front of the barrel, and we try various bits of wood to lift the cog mechanism off the lip of the barrel, until a couple of little jenga bricks does the trick!

                                                    Everyone has a go turning the crank.

Any mouldy or dried grapes are weeded out, along with leaves and twigs.

After about three hours, and some refreshment, the barrel is about three quarters full, with a cap of crushed grape skins already formed on top.

 

We'll leave this now for a week to begin fermentation – no added yeast or sugar.