Pressing Tempranillo, and Crushing Graciano

  
Last Wednesday evening/night (14th September) we:

1) pressed the Tempranillo that we harvested two weeks ago (see this post), and

2) crushed about 500 kg of Graciano that we bought in from our friend and fellow natural winemaker, Samuel Cano, from la Mota del Cuervo, a small town right in the middle of La Mancha.

Lovely Cases of Graciano Grapes

We did both tasks a bit in parallel and a bit in series! First we set up the 'assembly lines', inside the bodega for the crushing and ouside in the patio for the pressing. For the crushing we had to position: the pallet with about 30 cases og Graciano grapes, the manual crusher-destemmer, a bucket to catch the stems, two buckets to catch the must/skins/pips, a clean stainless fermentation steel tank for the must.

Tipping Cases of Graciano into the Crusher

Meanwhile in the patio we had: the steel tank containing the Tempranillo wine, skins and pips (In 17 days, the fermentation was complete), one manual cage press, two buckets, another clean stainless steel tank. It took about an hour to set everything up, about an hour to crush the Graciano, and about 2-3 hours to clean everthing up. We did the pressing at the same time.

Manual Cage Press, Bucket, Full Tank, Bucket, Empty Tank

Top-down View of Fermented Tempranillo Skins in the Press

Tempranillo Wine Pouring out of the Press

Crushing really requires two people to do properly: one to tip the case slowly into the crusher while the other picks out leaves, damaged grapes, etc. In this case we owe Samuel Cano a favour, as the quality of the grapes was excellent (none rotten, none damaged, none over- or under-ripe) nor were there any leaves, twigs, earth or any other foreign matter. One of us turned the flywheel while the other held the machine steady, helped the stems and grapes come out, etc. In between cases, one of us would nip out into the patio and press the Tempranillo down another centimeter or two.

Scooping out Tempranillo Wine and Grapes
from the Tank into the Press

We've found that this is actually the best way to press manually, ie very slowly and over a long period of time. The slower the better. In fact, when we opened up the cage to do a second pressing, we found that the cake was already so dry that we didn't have to do it.

It's very difficult to press slowly! For two reasons: 1) because when people are helping us press, they're happy and exited and emotional and so they instinctively want press fast, as if they were pumping water out of a boat! And when we (Jaun and myself) do it ourselves, we want to do it fast so we can finish as soon as poss so we can go home to sleep at a not too unreasonable time! 2) beacause the press is usually quite close to the crusher, and crushing really is a fast and energetic task, and so that feeling infects the people working the press!

Some technical winemaking details:

There were 30 cases of Graciano, but we didn't crush all of them. We decided to pour 5 cases in as whole clusters, uncrushed, stems and all. Hopefully, these grapes will undergo carbonic maceration and fermentation will start inside each individual grape. The stems will also provide a bit of acidity - but no 'green' or 'veggie' notes as we made sure that they were well lignified and not green or unripe.

Posing with a Bottle of Airén 2010 Maceración Carbonica

(which apparantly went down very well at the Chambers St Wine and José Pastor Selections presentation/signing of Alice Feiring's "Naked Wine" that very evening

At last! End of Fermentation

All done!

At last! On Saturday (6th Nov 2010) we finally pressed the last of our red wines off the skins.

Juan manning the pump.

Moving the Graciano into the barrel

Fabio at the other end.

The light is so I could peer into the barrel to check the level

Close-up of the stick-thing used to fill the barrel

It was only about 350 l of Graciano, but it was complicated, and it took us all day! This was because we fermented the Graciano in some old oak barrels that we recovered, and we had to replace the tops - quite a tricky operation if you're not a barrel-maker!

'Engrudo' a mixture of flour and water, used to seal the top of the barrel

Juan and Justo attempt to replace the top.

Note the metal hoops

Two manual cage presses bleeding off Graciano

While we were doing all this, we also filled another oak barrel with Tempranillo 2010, and another one with Shiraz 2010. I forgot to take photos of them, but I have this other one:

Crianza 2009. Cask filled in August 2010

Stuck Graciano Has Started Fermenting

Yes! yes! yes! Our two barrels of Graciano which had been stuck for about 6 days finally started fermenting today! Look, you can even see some CO2 bubbles (I think!):

Graciano skins (1)

Apart from the tender loving care, what we did was:

1. Put the casks out in the sun during the day, and back in the bodega at night.

2. Mix in about 1 liter of our Airén which was in fermentation and so full of active natural yeasts

Graciano skins (2)

Graciano skins and our "punching down tool"

I can't believe there no word in English for a "punching down tool"!!! I've looked (rather hurriedly) but couldn't find anything better!

More Graciano skins with PDT

Yet more Graciano skins

And that's about it. I'm so pleased :)

Status of On-going Experiments (Report Nº 1)

Experiment 1. Sparkling wine (Champagne, Cava, Spumante, ... need a name!)

We've made a lot of Airén in the 'normal' way, ie crushed, pressed and left to ferment. It's coming along nicely and there's nothing left to do here, except for one decanting to remove the dead yeast and other larger particles that will have sunk to the bottom of the tank.

We've left some grapes on the vine, to be picked in Nov/Dec, fermented separately and then added at some point in the 'champagne' making process, in collaboration with Alfredo Maestro.

Experiment 2. Airén, (Carbonic Maceration)

We have another lot of Airén that are fermenting. We put the whole clusters, uncrushed into a tank and sealed it about 15 days ago. By now each grape should have started to ferment internally, and should be at 1% or 2% alcohol. Tomorrow or next day we'll open the tank, crush and press the clusters and let it finish fermenting.

Experiment 3. Airén (on skins)

Yet another lot of Airén, we left macerating in their own skins for about 12 days. We pressed them a few days ago, and this lot is also coming along nicely. It has a sort of browny-orange-amber colour and smells more intense than the 'normal' Airén, we also have.

Experiment 4. Barrel fermentation (Graciano)

Last week we rocovered three old oak barrels that we found in the attic of the winery! Actually we tried to salvage 6 but three were so leaky, even after extensive soaking, that we couldn't use them. So we destemmed and crushed a lot of Graciano, and put it into the 3 barrels to begin fermenting. 

Old oak barrel, before being soaked

Non-Experiment 5. Petit Verdot.

This lot was going to go into the other three recovered barrels, but as we couldn't use them, we're using a stainless steel deposit. Not much of an experiment rally, except in the sence that it's the first time we've made Petit Verdot.

Our other wines this year are also in stainless steel, made in the same way we usually do, ie no unnecessary manipulations, or adding of 'substances'. This year we have:

• Tempranillo (2 lots)
• Airén (4 lots)
• Garnacha
• Shiraz
• Graciano
• Petit Verdot