What is the difference between crushing and pressing grapes?
Crushing merely breaks the grapes, allowing the juice, pulp, and seeds to mix with the skins and stems. Pressing, on the other hand, is the process of extracting grape juice from the fibre and other solid parts of the fruit.
What is the term for stomping grapes?
Stomping or treading on grapes is known as pigeage. This step is part of the traditional maceration process in winemaking. Instead of using a wine press or mechanical methods, people tread grapes barefoot in vats to release juice for fermentation initiation.
Is stomping on grapes hygienic?
According to experts like Alevrase, stomping grapes barefoot is perfectly hygienic. The balance of acid, sugar, and alcohol in wine prevents pathogens from surviving.
What is pressing in winemaking?
Pressing involves extracting juice from grapes using a wine press, manually, or by the natural weight of the grape clusters themselves. Historically, entire clusters were stomped by foot, but most modern winemakers use a crusher first to detach berries from stems and break their skins, releasing juice. Exceptions include the production of sparkling wine, like in Champagne, where grapes are pressed in clusters (with stems) to maintain lower phenol content in the must.
For white wines, grapes are typically pressed immediately after crushing or before fermentation begins. For red wines, grapes are also crushed, but pressing usually occurs after or near the end of fermentation, allowing for longer skin contact. This extended contact releases more colour, tannins, and other phenols into the juice.[1] Crushing releases about 60–70% of the juice naturally, without pressing.[2] The remaining 30–40% is obtained through pressing and can have higher pH, lower total acidity, higher volatile acid levels, and more phenols, often producing a more bitter, tangy wine. Winemakers often keep free-run juice and pressed juice separate for most of the winemaking process, sometimes even segregating different pressure levels, to blend later for an optimal, balanced wine. Typically, a wine may contain 85–90% free-run juice and 10–15% pressed juice.
What is maceration?
Maceration is primarily used for red wine production. It involves soaking grape skins and solids in the wine post-fermentation, where alcohol acts as a solvent to extract colour, tannins, and aroma, assisted by heat and contact time with the skins. Maceration infuses grape phenols—tannins, pigments (anthocyanins), and flavours—from the skins, seeds, and stems into the must. This process gives red wine its colour since grape juice (except for teinturier varieties) is typically a pale grey. White wines undergo little to no maceration, with limited skin contact before pressing to add subtle character, often in varieties like Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon. Rosé wines are made by brief maceration of red grape skins in the must, shorter than in red wine production.
