I have was aware of the many way to ferment wines but this advertisement [of which I just cut and pasted a portion of the discussion] got me to thinking. In making your reds do you punch or pump or ferment some other way?
"Punching Down or Pumping Over
When Cabernet is left in the fermentation vessel, the solids (skins, seeds, pulp, etc.) – or the “cap” – rises to the top. So as to enhance the phenolic complexity of their wines, winemakers like to integrate the cap back into the wine.
An easy analogy can be made with tea bags. If you leave the bag at the top of the pot, the tea is less aromatic and flavorful. If you push it down, you enhance concentration while making the tea more raspy.
Generally speaking there are two approaches to dealing with the cap: pump-overs and punch-downs.
Pump-overs are just what it sounds like. The winemaker recirculates the fermenting juice over the cap, submerging it, but without breaking it. This is the gentler approach.
Alternatively, the winemaker “punches down” the cap – either manually or mechanically – breaking the cap as he submerges the solids – magnifying density, while stiffening tannins."
"Pump-overs are just what it sounds like. The winemaker recirculates the fermenting juice over the cap, submerging it, but without breaking it. This is the gentler approach.
Alternatively, the winemaker “punches down” the cap – either manually or mechanically – breaking the cap as he submerges the solids – magnifying density, while stiffening tannins."
Perhaps, but I find that wines from pumped over ferments are just as tannic as those from punched down ferments.
And someone in the winery where I work has had very good success with submerged cap ferments (ie. the cap is held under the surface throughout fermentation).
Lots of variations; which do you like?
Best, Jim
You can add rotary fermenters to that list too. And délestage.
At the two places where I work part-time we do almost exclusively manual punchdowns, though we’ve done a little délestage at Eno Wines too. Everything we do is fermented in smaller bins, 1.5 tons and smaller. But other places I’ve helped out with from time to time (Edmunds St. John, Broc Cellars) do pumpovers too. And I’ve done a little submerged cap fermentation at another place, although we would only do that for a day or so at a time and do punchdowns the rest of the time.
Depends to some extent on what type of fermentation vessel you’re using. With a larger open-top tank - particularly one that’s taller than it is wide - I’d think you’re more likely to have pumpovers though depending on the type of tank, pneumatic punchdown machines can be used too if a facility is equipped with those. With a closed-top tank, you’re more restricted to pumpovers. With a wide, shallow tank or smaller bins, then manual punchdowns become feasible though you can do pumpovers on those too.
I so enjoy doing manual punchdowns on fermentations in the tall “macro 48” bins. Not.
Jim I have volunteered to punch down and it fact have punched down at two wineries (manual). Obviously pump over is mechanical.
It takes quite a bit of elbow grease to punch down the caps and way too much CO2 sucked in by my lungs. I have no basis from a winemaking perspective to compare the differences in outcomes.
I think the idea that the punchdown is more aggressive and leads to more tannic wines than the pumpover is one of the many myths in the wine business that gets handed down without debate, year after year. Other than some whole cluster fermentations, the 2 most tannic Pinots I’ve ever made were done entirely with pumpovers. In both years, 2000 and 2006, we were out of open top space and had to use some closed top tanks, no way to punch them down.
In my opinion, the pumpover extracts more out of the skins than the punchdown because of the completeness of the cap saturation and the length of time most pumpovers last. Punchdowns usually don’t last that long, especially when done manually in large tanks. It’s physically very tiring, so once the whole cap appears to have been pushed into the juice, the punchdown is over. Pneumatic punchdowns could go on longer, but usually don’t. Wineries that have the pneumatic devices are more likely to have lots of tanks to do, and only one pneumatic device. But a pumpover usually goes on and on, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes, depending on the size of the tank, wetting the cap over and over again.
I do have one friend who ferments only in Tbins and punches them down a good 5 to 10 minutes each. He does make highly extracted, tannic Pinots, but the length of his punchdowns makes his Pinots similar to how they’d be if they were pumped over.