Dirty Talk on WineTime to PressPosted 11/09/2006 at 12:20 PM by DirkWe are pressing off Cabernet. There is plenty of debate between winemakers, marketing people, and equipment suppliers as to what is the best way to press. Basket press versus membrane press? Moderate press versus heavy press? Heck, there may even be biodynamic pressing that waits for a full moon...(let's not go there.) We aren't waiting for cow's horn, snake oil, or the phase of the moon. It is time to capture the best flavors possible from each tank and vineyard. We spend plenty of time tasting through the tanks to decide when is the best time to drain and press. Young wines are seductive with their power, freshness and fruit but they have a long way to go before bottling is an option. We want to retain the luscious fruit and let the palate weight build, but we don't want to wait so long that it gets overtly hard from increased perception of tannins.
So, which is the right type of press? A press is just a mechanical means to remove the juice from the skins. Fifteen years ago, membrane presses were the gentlest presses and the most popular. For fine reds, basket presses are the hot ticket these days. Of course, basket presses were invented before electricity was available and before Napa Valley had grapes. These are not a technological breakthrough! A basket press has a slotted basket full of pomace, (the twenty-five-cent word for fermented grape skins), then pressure is applied from the top to squeeze the juice out the sides. While it uses more pressure, the juice slowly leaks out, looking like wine that has been lightly filtered by passing through the compressed cake of skins. Membrane presses look like horizontal cylinders with an interior air bag (actually, more like a side curtain air bag). Under very gentle pressure, the bag inflates and squeezes the grapes against the side to force juice out through drains. The wine from a membrane press is typically red but very murky and needs time to settle. We compared membrane and basket presses with wine from a single tank. (How scientific!) The two mechanisms act differently...the wines look different...the wines tasted different... at first... In the end, after settling, the wines from the two presses had identical flavors and analysis. The membrane press was slightly more efficient so it got more gallons per ton. There is a lot of marketing hype associating quality with basket presses. To us, it seems as if there are better places to look for quality. However, there are other reasons to love the renaissance of the basket press. They are easier to clean. It is easier to taste the cleaner juice for making a press cut decision. They are easier to fill. They look cool. They get marketing attention. What more do you want from an expensive machine that gets used for a couple of weeks in the fall? So, the answer to which is best, is a resounding YES...membrane and basket both win!
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About the Author
Dirk Hampson
Few winemakers realize the opportunity to build a winemaking program from the ground up, living and growing with the vineyards over two decades. Dirk
Hampson, director of winemaking and chairman at Far Niente, and sister wineries Dolce and Nickel & Nickel, counts himself among the fortunate. An
enology graduate from the University of California, Davis, Hampson honed his craft at some of Europe's greatest properties, and was the first American to apprentice at Bordeaux First Growth Chateau Mouton Rothschild. Hampson returned to the US and was appointed winemaker at Far Niente in 1983.
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