Saw an interesting post on FB this morning from a local wine and food critic.
To paraphrase, open top bins punched down by hand are the only way to make great red wine. Tall, closed-top SS tanks make only average wine at best. As a critic, he can tell when a Cab or Zin has been made via punch-down by hand in an open-top vs being mass-produced in a giant tank with gadgets and hydrolic pumps [sic].
Discuss.
What if you do punch downs in a 600g SS tank? I do that from time to time. Could he tell that?
Nate,
I’m sure you were rolling your eyes as you read this article. As someone who grew up and works in the Napa Valley, I’m sure you’ve tasted many stellar wines made in closed top tanks, utilizing pumpovers as the method of pigage.
I don’t own any closed top tanks, or a must pump for that matter, so I have nothing to compare hand punch downs to.
What makes you think that, John? ![[wink.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/04707e6a7bbb03e0153e349d8a9270d30e1e9525.gif "wink"){kind=small}
In general, I like to keep my ferments small. I don’t like to ferment all that hot for most varieties. This lends itself more to smaller tanks/bins/garbage cans/barrels, whatever that tend to need to be hand-pigeaged, but not always. I have some nice smaller SS tanks at my disposal as well. Interestingly, though, the hottest ferment I had this year (aside from the tank on which I forgot to turn on the cooling logic for a couple days - whoops!), was also the smallest…some Sangio in cut up barrels that held about 1/4 of a ton each. I sure was wishing I could find a way to cool those other than leaving them outside overnight and potentially cooling too much. Also, I like to have more lots as opposed to fermentor blends, as it leads to more knowledge as opposed to less.
Having done Cabernet both in OT’s and in closed-top tanks, I actually prefer the closed tops aside from the OT’s tendency to dissipate more alcohol and keep the conversions down. The pigeaged stuff got a little more macerated, and tannins can be our enemy in this site and get out of hand quick. Whole berry = friend.
I think the supposition goes back to the assumption that more care goes into smaller, punched down ferments because people think of that as being more the area of small wineries and all. Fear of “big” “industrial” “factory” wineries and such. My employees and my back can assure you, though, that there is plenty of attention paid to ferments of all sizes, closed-top or not, punched-down or pumped over.
I tend not to use hydraulic pumps, though except for the machinery.
which critic?
If temperature is a part of this equation, our tank ferments are very cool. They VERY RARELY get over 80F. As far as that is concerned, 1/2 tons are the best. Some of our T-bins get pretty hot, even in the barrel room. We got some homemade wood/plastic lined bins last year from Villa Creek, and those suckers get HOT. I don’t like them at all.
Does seem like this is a ‘more care/attention during winemaking is a good thing’ comment and not much more…except that it’s my understanding that it can be harder to control the peak temp with 8+ ton fermentation lots…tho it seems like that’s just a matter of cooling/tank technology and I’m sure someone has solved that. Also agree that t bins can get pretty hot…they can easily get up to 90+ degrees if they’re full. Is the cap thickness to juice volume of a full t bin really better/different than a tank? Doesn’t seem like it. Doesn’t seem like punching down a full t bin is more gentle than punching down a small/medium tank…in fact, I’d probably argue the opposite.
Getting a really good sort on that much fruit (e.g. an 8+ ton lot) seems hard (given that I do my own sorting…in the vineyard and winery). But there’s that cool/expensive sorter that, from the video, looked to do a great job. Tho I do wonder if that machine is more oriented to thicker skin grapes (esp cab, obviously) and wouldn’t work as well on Pinot. I’ve seen berry sorting operations (manual, not the cool high tech machine) and have wondered if, for pinot, the extra step does more damage than you get out of it. I do 100% whole berry and figure I get at most 50% once it’s in the bin/tank (and the majority of my picks are <24.5 brix). But then, pinot doesn’t have the bell pepper pyrazines that cab does…so some less ripe berries adds an appealing green/floral character. Overall tho, doing great work in the vineyard seems like the best, most scalable model…esp in terms of keeping on top of mold, good thinning at veraison and paying the pickers enough for a top quality pick.
Speaking of which…seems like there’s a lot more mechanical harvesting of grapes for high end wine being done. I don’t know, but I’m inclined to believe that this would have a noticeable effect on the wine…way more than bin vs tank. Is high end mechanical harvesting + super high tech automatic sorting the new winemaking model? Would this qualify as ‘Natural Wine’? 
Uh…sorry for rambling.
How in the world do you guys punch down newly destemmmed whole berry ferments in t bins and 48’s?
This year we bought a new Lugana destemmer(very pleased with it) and I did my first wb ferments. I had a hell of a time doing anything with them for the first two or three days. The bins-o-blue berries were impenetrable with a punch down tool. Luckily the fruit came in between 40-48 degrees, so cold soaking was not a problem, but I was having a hard time figuring out home to add and mix the So2, much less get an accurate juice sample for brix/ph/ta. It was a bit nerve racking and stressful. Fortunately, I didn’t have any real problems and everything finished nice and clean.
You’re issue seems more of a syrah/cab thing John. I haven’t had much problem punching down 100% whole berry pinot, even the 23 brix fruit I brought in this year. I don’t like to punch down or mix the fruit much/any until fermentation gets going tho (I keep the top wet tho) …so I take samples of the berries as the bin/tank gets filled and use that for my analysis (and I add so2 as the bin gets filled as well).
Are you going to stick with 100% whole berry, or give 80% whole berry and 20% crushed a try (or some other option) John? I little too early to say perhaps.
It was mostly a Syrah thing for us this year. By the time we got to the Cab/BDX varieties I strapped on the crusher and adjusted the rollers so it was barely breaking the berries. It is so nice to have the control I’ve always been looking for. I will probably do some lightly crushed vs. wb next year. I did add the So2 incrementally as the bins were filling, but I was just unsure for lack of experience.
I have to agree with those that think his statement was inline with thinking small lots are better, etc. For me, my largest lot was in a wooden open top, the others, little steel tanks at 16hl and 25hl, the wooden tank is roughly 32hl. Temps were similar on each, ambient temp was very cold so I can’t say much on insulatory factors.
Either way, great wine can be made in many mite ways than we know today. Preferences are one thing. Actually spotting the differences are much harder than the critic mentions. In general, I also believe that the more someone thinks they know about wine, the less accurate they are in judging their abilities.
Sorry from the ramble…
I have my wine in 1-ton fermentation bins, open top. But I prefer tanks. Small tanks, but tanks. Mainly for temperature control, especially during extended maceration, which can be difficult in bins. I do like punching down though and I life the fact that alcohol blows off in open tops, reducing it by .5% at least over closed tops.
Mechanical air-compressed punch-down tool for the first 5-7 days or so.
Unbelievabley helpful and gentle tools/toys after 20 years of El Presidente Manuel Labor! Trying to hand-punch down that goop the first few days is like being a virgin pretending you’re having great sex. It just ain’t happening. (wink here)
I’m not sure that you can make any blanket comment about quality regarding fermenter size. FWIW… we ferment everything in 3/4 ton T-Bins. Here’s our protocol: Totally crush and destem directly into T-Bins. We add 80 ml Color Pro enzyme along with 80 ppm of SO2 as we crush (layered in so that they’re distributed). The Color Pro helps break down the skins so that we can work with the must early in the cold soak. We also add about 70 lbs of dry ice as we crush. We clean off the sides and spray a dilute SO2 water mixture over the top of the must. We then put a T-Bin lid on the fermente and let it sit for 48 hours.
After sitting for 48 hours, we start our sampling phase. We open the fermenters each day, and using our punchdown tool, mix the must up as best we can. If the must is too dense, which happens more often with Cabernet than Pinot, we’ll use a plastic shovel to break-up the must and stir it around. We collect a sample by getting juice from multiple areas of the T-Bin. We measure both brix and pH, and add any water and/or tartaric as necessary. We are conservative in our adds the first day, since we’re not sure that we can always get a true, representative sample that early. We then re-stir the must to distribute the additions, clean the sides of the fermenters, and spray the sides and top of the must with SO2 water. We spray the SO2 on to cut down VA build up. This phase can last upto 7 or 8 days. We feel it’s important to do this process every day since any raisins or dehydrated fruit will soak up and release more sugar. Personally, I think that anyone who only takes one set of readings and makes adjustments once is deluding themselves. We re-lid all fermenters after we’re done.
Once the fermenters start to warm up, and we’ve reached steady brix and pH readings, we innoculate. We punch down once a day, continuing to clean the sides of the fermenters and apply a mist of SO2 water. We keep all the fermenters lided except when doing punch downs.
This process requires a ton of work - but it’s what we’ve found gives us our desired results. This year the max number of fermenters we had going at one time was 102. ![[berserker.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/8/8600bbd4810d342b8fbd4ffb62b4f0026275fd37.gif "berserker"){kind=small}
Brian, I bet if your fruit is clean and un-damaged or overly soft, you could easily get away with 40-60ppm at the crusher. 80 seems like a “Davis” recommendation to me.
Given how long we cold soak, and how much oxygen gets incorporated into the must with all of our mixing, sampling, and additions… we’ve found that 80ppm works fine. It never causes us any issues with fermentation (either kinetics or tastes/smells), and it’s all gone once we barrel down. Definitely not from any Davis recommendation - but rather something more intuitive to me that worked. Another part of my winemaking religion.
How are my fellow bin fermenters keeping their temps where they want them right now? If I don’t get em where I want, I will be using a glycol plate. I like my ferments from 80-85 at peak.
The most I had going at a time was 6. Holy crap, you must have been busy!
Can I piggy back on this thread?
Does anyone know of a submersible cap insert for T-bin-S macro bins? Anything on the market at all and who would have them? I think it’s something I want to try next year.
After many harvests in many regions, and with many different wine makers and abotu 13 years ITB, huge red flags are thrown when I hear anyone say things like “only way” “first” “only” “best”
I have had outstanding wines made in many different ways and woudl hate to be so close minded to hang my hat on any of them.