Wine Press (Edited from Wikipedia)
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Wine Press (Edited from Wikipedia) SUMMARY A wine press is a device used to extract juice from crushed grapes during wine making. There are a number of different styles of presses that are used by wine makers but their overall functionality is the same. Each style of press exerts controlled pressure in order to free the juice from the fruit (most often grapes). The pressure must be controlled, especially with grapes, in order to avoid crushing the seeds and releasing a great deal of undesirable tannins into the wine. A basket press consists of a large basket filled with the crushed grapes. Pressure is applied through a plate that is forced down onto the fruit. The mechanism to lower the plate is often either a screw or a hydraulic device. The juice flows through openings in the basket. The basket style press was the first type of mechanized press to be developed, and its basic design has not changed in nearly 1000 years. HISTORY The history of the wine press and of pressing is nearly as old as the history of wine itself with the remains of wine presses providing some of the longest-serving evidence of organized viticulture and winemaking in the ancient world. The earliest wine press was probably the human foot or hand, crushing and squeezing grapes into a bag or container where the contents would ferment. The pressure applied by these manual means was limited and these early wines were probably pale in color and body, and eventually ancient winemakers sought out alternative means of pressing their wine. By at least the 18th dynasty, the ancient Egyptians were employing a "sack press" made of cloth that was squeezed with the aid of a giant tourniquet. The use of a wine press in winemaking is mentioned frequently in the Bible but these presses were more elaboration of treading lagars where grapes that were tread by feet with the juice running off into special basins. The more modern idea of a piece of a winemaking equipment used to extract the juice from the skins probably emerged during the Greco-Roman periods where written accounts by Cato the Elder, Marcus Terentius Varro, Pliny the Elder, and others 1 described wooden wine presses that utilized large beams, capstans and windlasses to exert pressure on the pomace. The wines produced by these presses were usually darker, with more color extracted from the skins but could also be harsher with bitter tannins also extracted. That style of wine press would eventually evolve into the basket press used in the Middle Ages by wine estates of the nobility and Catholic Church leading to the modern tank batch and continuous presses used in wineries today. In Egypt Winemaking in ancient Egypt probably used people's feet for crushing and pressing the grapes, but tomb paintings excavated at Thebes showed that the ancient Egyptians developed some innovations to their wine presses-such as the use of long bars hanging over the treading basins and straps that the workers could hold onto while treading. Hieroglyph and paintings also showed the Egyptians by at least by the 18th Dynasty (c. 1550-c. 1292 BC) were also using a type of cloth "sack press" where grapes or skins left over from treading would be twisted and squeezed by a tourniquet to release the juice. A modified version of this sack press had the sack hung between two large poles with workers holding each pole. After the grapes were loaded into the sack, the workers would walk in opposite directions, squeezing the grapes in the bag and capturing the juice in a vat underneath the bag. This early wine press not only had the benefit of exerting more pressure on the skins and extracting more juice than treading but the cloth also acted an early form of filtering the wine. In Greece and Rome In the 2nd century BC, Cato the Elder wrote a vivid and detailed account of the workings of early Roman wine presses and how to build a press room in his work De Agri Cultura. The press Cato describes was known as a lever or beam press which was built on an elevated platform that contained and shallow basin that would slope and narrow to a run off point where the freed juice would exit. The press would consist of a large horizontal beam held up by two upright fixtures in the front and on upright fixture in the front. The grapes were placed under the beam with pressure was applied by a windlass that was affixed by rope to the front of the beam and a user winding down that end. Rope would also be used wound around the "cake" of the pressed grape skins to help keep it in place. 2 In the 1st century AD, Roman statesman Pliny the Elder described a "Greek style" press in his work Natural History that saw the windlass replaced by a vertical screw that often included a counterweight to increase pressure. Marcus Terentius Varro, Columella and Virgil would also include descriptions of the workings of wine presses in their agricultural treatises. Yet despite their frequent mentions in ancient writings and archaeological evidence showing the presence of wine presses throughout the Roman empire, their use was actually relatively rare. This was because having a wine press was a very expensive and large piece of equipment that most Roman farmers, outside the estate holding patricians and the wealthiest plebeians, could not afford. Instead, it was much more common for Roman estates to have large tanks or trough where grapes were tread upon by feet or paddles. Varro also described in his work De re rustica a type of "pressed wine" known as lorca that was produced by the left over grape skins being soaked in water that was served to slaves and farm workers. By the 2nd century AD, the Romans began using a "screw press" that would be the predecessor to the basket press that would become popular in the Middle Ages. This press would include a large beam with a hole cut out of the middle through which a screw was fitted through. Attached the base of the beam was a cut piece of stone that fit the circumference of a vat that was lined with porous clay or cloth. Ropes and pulleys attached to the beam would raise the beam and stone above the vat that would be loaded with grapes. Then six to eight workers (usually slaves) would be divided on either side of the screw. The workers would walk clockwise, turning the screw as it the stone descended upon the grapes, providing added pressure with each turn. A hole or spout at the bottom of the vat would allow the juice to drain out where it was usually bucket into amphorae or other large fermentation vessels. Use in the Middle Ages In the Middle Ages, most winemaking technology advances were made by religious orders (particularly in France and Germany) who owned vast amounts of vineyard land and produced large quantities of wines in their abbeys and bishoprics. It was here that the basket press became popular. The press included large cylindrical basket made of wood staves bound together by wood or metal rings with a heavy horizontal disc fitted at the top. After the grapes were loaded into the basket, the disc would depress towards the bottom with juice seeping 3 out between the staves into a waiting basin or tray. In some presses, added pressure would come from a giant lever or manual hand crank. While the basket press was becoming more widely used by Church owned estates in France and Germany, winemaking in the Iberian Peninsula and by small local farmers throughout Europe was still mostly down by treading in stone lagers. However, there are many church records that showed feudal land tenants were willing to pay a portion of their crop to use a landlord's wine press if it was available. This was probably due in part to added volume of wine (anywhere from 15-20%) that pressing could produce versus treading. But safety could have also been a driving force since many parish records from the period reported wine cellar works suffocating to death (from the released carbon dioxide) while treading fermenting wine grapes in a vat. As the use of the basket press became more popular, wineries and wine writers started to make a distinction between the quality of wine that came from different levels of pressing. The highest quality was the vin de goutte or the "free run" juice that was released by the mere weight of the grapes squeezing each other as they were loaded into the press. This was usually the lightest in color and body and was often kept separate from the vin de presse that came from pressing which was darker and had more tannins. No where was the analysis of the difference in press fractions more astute than in the Champagne wine region where Dom Pérignon was recorded in 1718 by biographer Canon Godinot to have laid out these specifications for how the press fractions of juice destined to be Champagne should be handled. First the pressing were to happen quickly, as soon after harvest as possible to keep the juice at its freshest and to avoid any coloring from the red wine grapes of Pinot noir and Pinot Meunier. The free run was considered too delicate and lacking on its own to make fine Champagne and it was sometimes discarded or used for other wines. The first and second pressings were the most ideal for sparkling wine production.