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October 19 – “Punch Downs”

by Grape Stomper Todd on October 19, 2010

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Is this where the term “Punch Drunk” comes from?

On this day, in 1856, the record for the longest bare-knuckle fight occurred in Melbourne, Australia. The sport of bare-knuckle fighting or fisticuffs was the original form of boxing as we know it today. The only thing that differentiated it from a street fight is that there were rules, umpires, and championships.

But on this day, James Kelly and Jack Smith battled for a record 6 hours and 15 minutes. And I’m sure if I wasn’t such a pansy, I’d take an extra 15 seconds of research time to tell you who won the fight.

But I’d rather tell you about today’s Wine Word of the Day: Punch Downs.

After grapes are harvested, they are crushed into a container to begin the fermentation process. Medium to larger wineries crush their grapes into stainless steel tanks, whereas smaller wineries typically crush their grapes into bins.

In the case of these small wineries, the bins are about 4’ square and 4’ high and the top is open to receive the grapes. Once the yeast starts fermenting the juice, the skins rise and float on top of the grape juice. But since the color of the wine comes from the skins, the winemaker must stir the skins back down into the juice to help develop the color and structure of the wine.

This stirring process is known as “doing punch downs”. To punch down the skins, the winemaker usually stands precariously atop the thin edge of the bin and uses a stainless steel rod with a foot on the bottom to push the skins back down into the juice. Although no winemaker readily admits it, they all have some stories about slipping during punch-downs and nearly plunging head-first into 200 gallons of wine. Some may actually admit to falling in.

Tagged as: bins, crush, fermentation, juice, punch downs, skin, stainless steel, winemaker, yeast

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October 7 – “Crush”

by Grape Stomper Todd on October 7, 2010

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (2.9MB)

This is a depressing day for grapes and Cumberland College.

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On this day in 1916, the Georgia Tech college football team smashes Cumberland College 222-0. That score still stands as the most lopsided game in college football history…and for Cumberland Collage, the most depressing.

That brings us to our Wine Word of the Day: Crush

Yes, it is a wonderful time of year. It’s football season AND the wine harvest is on! That means we hope our favorite teams crush their opponents, and that our favorite wineries crush our favorite grapes.

Although we’ve all heard the wine term “crush” before, it seems some folks are still a little unclear as to exactly what that means.

Generally, wine makers will refer to late Summer and most of Fall as “Crush Season”. But if you are a grape grower, to you, this is “Harvest Season.” The act of crushing is mainly done with red grapes these days. What happens is the grapes clusters are harvested, then taken to the winery. There they are put into a machine that does two things at once: destemming and crushing. The wine industry, in an attempt to confuse people, though, calls this machine the destemer/crusher.

This efficient, technological wonder quickly removes the grapes from the stems. The grapes then pass through soft rubber rollers that gently break their skins to release the juice into a fermenter. The stems are typically discarded. Yeast is then added to the fermenter where it eats the sugar in the juice and converts it into alcohol. Keep in mind the skins of the grapes are still in the fermenter to give red wine its color because almost all grape juice is clear.

After the yeast converts all the sugar to alcohol, the juice is put into barrels. However, about 20% of the juice is still attached to the skins. Winemakers, being a greedy bunch, will press this juice out of the skins using another machine. That device is known by industry insiders as the “press”. White grapes usually go straight to the press after harvest. Their skins aren’t needed, so the juice is pressed directly into barrels or tanks for fermentation.

In the old days, grapes were crushed by foot. The foot is an excellent crusher because it is heavy enough to break the skins, but soft enough not to break the grape seeds. If you break too many seeds, the wine will be very bitter. Kinda like the rivalry between Georgia Tech and Cumberland College, or Lucy and the Italian woman in the grape vat.

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