Deb manages the barrel filling below while Sean buckets the wine from the fermentation tank into the press.
Today we pressed 3 tons of Love Ranch Syrah! I thought I would show you how we accomplish this last step of the primary fermentation process. In this picture, you can see Sean, up on the crush pad, bucketing the red wine from the fermenter into the wood basket press we use. We chose the Idropress because it is quite gentle on the red wines we make. It does not extract the sharp tannins from the skins and seeds during the pressing as the water bladder inside does not have enough pressure to provide a hard press. The wine flows from the bucket through the press and into a small holding tank placed below the press. It then flows down the wine hose, which lays on a 2×6 plank down the hill, moving the wine gently by gravity to Deb, down below, where she is operating the handle on the hose, regulating the wine flow in filling the barrels.
The use of gravity flow is the very reason we built the crush pad on the hill above the winery. I believe that we see pretty aromatics and flavors in our wines because we utilize very gentle methods in our interactions with the wines we make.
We are excited about these new Syrahs!
Now the wine is off to rest in the neutral barrels we use. The secondary fermentation, where malic acid (the acid in a green apple) is converted to lactic acid (the acid in milk) will begin in the barrels and hopefully finish before December rolls around and the temperature drops too low.
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