I heard a winemaker say the other day that punching down a 4- or 5-ton tank is virtually impossible to do by hand and would take a “large, Australian intern” to accomplish that task, and then the job wouldn’t be done very well at that. When asked “Why Australian?”, the winemaker replied “Because that’s where our biggest interns seem to come from”......this winemaker works for a Pinot-focused winery that is owned by one of the world’s larger wineries. To me, this comment illustrates yet again the often different ways of thinking between a large winery and a small winery. It also made me wonder if this person had ever worked with any Austrian interns….

Now, what is a “punch down”? The Oxford Companion to Wine (2nd Ed., pg 558) defines it as: “the manual wine-making operation of breaking up and submerging the CAP of skins and other solids during red wine fermentation.” Punching down and pumping over (this is the method of using a pump to splash fermenting juice over the cap) must be done in quality wine production. There are three, main products that arise during the highly complex primary (or alcoholic) fermentation: Carbon Dioxide (as a gas), heat and ethanol (alcohol, technically ethyl alcohol). The chemical activity and evolved heat during fermentation causes the grape skins to rise to the top of the fermenting juice and create something commonly known as a “cap”. It is difficult to convey how forceful an active primary fermentation is: it can seem almost to boil and bubble, it foams, and when there are many fermentations going on at one time in a winery, one can stand in the middle of the room and hear them. As a result of this force, the skins become packed into the cap very tightly. So, a punchdown achieves many things: it is used to loosen the cap, aerate to a certain extent the fermenting must, and keep the skins wet, all in the hopes of extracting as much good “stuff” (color compounds, flavor compounds) from the skins and as little “bad stuff” (seed tannins, maybe stem tannins) as possible.

Over the years, Pinot Noir makers in particular have increasingly preferred to use punchdowns as opposed to pumpovers because it is believed that punching down is a gentler method to use on the thin-skinned and easily-affected Burgundian grape. Most wineries that have sizeable tanks (3tons and more) use a mechanical punchdown device. This device is usually a plate that is attached to a vertical bar, that is attached to somekind of mechanical unit (usually either hydraulic or air-actuated). This unit is then attached to a beam on which it moves from tank to tank. The operator simply stands at the side of the tank and presses buttons to operate the punchdown device.

But really, all of these things are very modern occurrences and have come about in full-force within the last 15 years or so. Before the invention of punchdown “devices”, or, for that matter, the invention of much anything beyond the wheel, one might ask “What were people doing to break-up the cap and make relatively good wine?” Well, they could’ve used wooden paddles or their hands. They might have done the classic “grape stomping”, and then, of course, there is the classic “I Love Lucy” episode that every American seems to remember where a number of folks get into a relatively shallow vat and mix the grapes with their lower legs. But how many people know that in some parts of Europe, it used (maybe still?) to be that naked men got into the tanks to mix the must up? Naked Men?. Hmmm. I would like to know why that fell by the wayside in favor of technology? How much more appealing is a stainless steel punchdown device (manual or hydraulic) over a bunch of naked men stained red from the chest down? But before I go astray…

Now, you might wonder what we mean here at Cima Collina when we say our wines are made with a “minimalist and hands-on approach” ? Afterall, we hear phrases like this quite a bit, but the true meaning of these phrases is often subject to speculation and the use of certain technologies is very much subject to interpretation. When it comes to punchdowns, this is what we mean, ie here’s the Full Monty: all of our punchdowns (for all of our wines—including Cab, Merlot and Petite Sirah) are done manually by a real person—though, sadly, not a naked one (although I am going to check with Tom Wark about the possible marketing implications of that idea…..hee hee)—with a stainless steel tool to help out. These punchdowns are done 3 times per day during active fermentation, less during other times. Why do we do manual punchdowns when technology could make our lives a little easier? Because we believe it is the best way to achieve the kind of quality wine we like. We don’t plunge into the tank, but gently loosen and work the cap. By doing this manually, one can also get a feel for—and I’m not kidding here—how the fermentation is doing, because the texture of the cap, the amount of heat, the aromas, etc. all indicate what is going on in the must and at what stage of fermentation the wine is in. (This, by the way, was a big, unexpected revelation for me. I started out working in winery laboratories, and much of my career has been spent focused on the quality control, must-quantify-everything, perspective). As a result, I spend less of my time doing Brix or temperature analyses, and much more time burning calories by punching down. So, some folks might call us gluttons for punishment, but I prefer to look at it as a way of not feeling guilty about not making it to the gym during harvest. Cheers!

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 16th, 2006 at 2:46 pm and is filed under Winemaking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.