To extract grape juice most efficiently, there is no secret, you have to squeeze the berries!

The most ancestral technique is foot treading. Rare are the winegrowers who still use this technique! This is also found in certain traditional festivals where, of course, the wine flows freely (in moderation)!

Since antiquity, it was designed for lever and screw presses which were perfected around the 15th century, powered by horses and then machines. In Preignes we work with 2 pneumatic presses. The machine is made up of a horizontal stainless steel cylinder in which there is a skin, a « balloon » which, by inflating very gradually, will press the berries onto this cylinder.

This press is filled with the fresh and cooled harvest, it can rotate, store this harvest for a few hours or let the juice flow as it is filled. Once the juice has flowed through the drains (free-run juice), pressing is started (press juice) with a dedicated program per variety or grape profile (some grapes are pressed better) with gradual pressure increases (levels) which have The aim is to “dry” the grapes as well as possible while avoiding crushing the berries = gentle pressing! The juice is then cooled again and sent to dedicated tanks.

We use them on the whites and rosés immediately after harvest. For the reds, we press the marc after maceration (alcoholic fermentation therefore finished between 8 and 18 days after harvest), to extract the “press wine”. 

A little patience, do not be too « in a hurry » to taste the new vintage! White and rosé will only be available at the end of the year and red in spring!