Last Saturday (Oct-29) was press-day! The wine was measuring dry, which was great because it allowed me to press on the weekend. Commercial wineries sometimes let the must sit after fermenting (called extended maceration), to promote additional extraction of color and flavor goodies. But at home, that's an invitation for wild bacteria to join the party. So it's best to press as soon as the wine is dry (the sugar is all gone).
Above are a couple photos of the press I rented for the day. It's not a manual press you usually associate with home winemakers; it's a bladder press, which has a water bladder in the middle. A water hose is hooked up. After filling the press with juice and skins, you open a water valve. The bladder fills up and presses the skins. Easy and efficient! The pressed wine gets progressively darker as the pressure rises. The wine tasted great! It needs age and oak influence, but it's off to a good start.
Now the wine sits in large glass containers called carboys. The next day I racked the wine (siphoned it from one carboy to another) to get it off the sludge that collected at the bottom. I added MLF bacteria and nutrients to ensure malolactic fermentation goes smoothly. After a month, more or less, I'll move it to the barrel for long-term aging.
~Dave Sienknecht
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