Pressing Grapes

In order for wine to be made the grapes must be pressed to extract the juice for fermentation. There are two methods. The first is a “hard press” where grapes in a large, cylindrical, metal container are mashed by another metal object. This extracts every last bit of juice from the raw material, however, many bitter components of the grapes are included because of metal working against metal. This method is often used for commercial, large volume and lower end vino. The second, better method is a “soft press” where a bag of sorts inside the container is slowly inflated, gently extracting the juice from the grapes. This method results in the best juice with none of the bitter components and is used for better and higher end wines.