I've always wondered how wine is pressed. I knew that red wines had to stay on the skins for a week or so to pick up color and other elements, but I never knew how that was done. Now I do. Today I figured out the difference between free run and crushed wine. In my mind everything was put into a press and then before the press was turned on the juice that ran freely was the free run. It could be done that way, but usually not. The red juice is taken out of the fermenters with the same stainless steel filter I've been using to pump over and heat up the wine. 
Once all of the juice has been pumped into barrels, the rest is placed into the press. In the photo to the right Berto is inside Bertha One, shoveling out what is left after the wine had been pumped out from a valve that is located at the very bottom of the fermenter. Once he has that bin full (it actually took several bins) he takes it with the forklift and dumps it into the press. I attended a barrel tasting event once where Scott had the exact same wine with one sample that was free run, and one that was from the press. The taste difference was amazing. The press wine has much more tannins for one thing. All of the wine tastes a bit bitter to me right now. The oak will help to mellow it out, as will a secondary fermentation called malolactic fermentation where the harsher malic acid is converted into a softer lactic acid. You can just heat up the wine to about 70 degrees and let nature take its course, but Scott will add another yeast culture to get the malolactic fermentation He's going to start it up right away, so the wine in barrels is going back into the wine making area and not into the barrel room.
I spent the day warming up the rest of the red juice. It comes out of that barrel room at around 50 degrees. It takes the heater about 25 minutes to warm up the fermenter bin to 70.
During a break I went outside to watch Berto fill up barrels. They are all steam cleaned before being filled. I stick my nose in one and smell it. It's so wonderful. Someone should make a men's cologne out of that smell--so earthy and sweet with a kind of leathery finish. Scott comes by and says it's the best $1,000 smell there is. (That's about what a barrel cost.) Berto is being extremely careful in filling the barrels. He's got a flashlight in his right hand and his left is holding the valve to turn off the pump when the barrel is full. It is so hard to know when it is full, because once it starts to the top, it finishes very quickly. And of course, since I'm taking photos, this one
ends up blowing up like Old Faithful.
That's another couple of bottles of wine down the gutter. It could make a grown man cry. Tomorrow Scott and I are going to try and get over to Highland Vineyards. They have some 60 year old Riesling vines on the estate. Scott purchases some of that fruit to make his Riesling which is just amazing. I don't have to be at the vineyard first thing in the morning, so I probably won't get any more sunrise shots like the one at the bottom of the page. I was driving down Muddy Valley Road and I looked up and saw that fir tree standing all by itself and reaching up into the fog. I've gotten pretty good at finding a wide spot in that narrow road and jumping out quickly to grab a shot before another car comes along. It's such a beautiful commute, but I'll be really glad when I don't have to get in a car every morning. I kind of forget how spoiled I am being able to walk to work. I've probably put more miles on my car in the last several weeks that I would in several months otherwise. But if you have to be in a car driving somewhere, really, this isn't too bad.
