09/23/17 – It continues in the basement

Thankfully, we still had active support here, which is very helpful in the work of destemming, since the processing of the grapes should take place very quickly.

The Pinot Blanc was destemmed and macerated for a few hours, then it was the turn of the Pinot Noir so as not to lose color in the Pinot Blanc.

Slightly sulphurized to contain possible fungi and wild yeasts, the Oechsle content was measured after destemming. The Pinot Blanc was 92 Oechsle, the Pinot Noir had 87 Oechsle.

Not bad for this year. Not top du top, but good top measure.

The Pinot Noir now had the opportunity to show what it was capable of on the mash for a full 3 weeks, whereas the Pinot Blanc had to leave the mash again that day.

The press then showed what could actually be extracted from the grapes. With our almost 350 kg we were able to squeeze out 175 liters. You have to keep in mind that we are traveling with a traditional basket press, which would never allow us to work with the pressure as today’s modern presses do.

But that doesn’t detract from the result of working with a traditional method. After all, it wasn’t done differently in the past. So wooden plates on top of the molding compound, weights on the plates and pieces of wood, so that the so-called head of the press finds its place, to then place its weight and fix it so that it can be turned down. And off we went.

So unleashed. Buckets out of the vat, straight into the press. After pressing the Muskateller, we decided against the press cloth this time because we had the feeling last time that we couldn’t build up enough pressure when we used the press cloth.

But even without a press blanket, we still had a few hurdles to overcome. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that small quantities of the berries lack the necessary weight, which already contributes to a certain extent to the juicing, and on the other hand, the mass in the press is distributed in such a way that quite a bit of wood needs to be added to it even build up enough pressure for juicing.

Of course you can’t achieve 100% yield with a traditional press like this, but we are between 70 and 85%.

Finally the good drop flowed. In 16 liter buckets. Poured into the barrel by hand, in which the must had the opportunity to get rid of its turbid substances.

Here we also work traditionally via sedimentation. The cleansing factor here is time. However, you have to be very careful here.

As soon as the must starts to ferment, the quiet time is over. Then there is nothing more with sedimentation. The resulting carbonic acid causes a lot of hustle and bustle and mixes up everything that is in the barrel. Dismounting is then done. It is therefore extremely important to find a good middle ground in order to draw off the must at a suitable time.