Racking Day

Sunday 11/30 was "racking" day. Basically, after you press the wine from the fermented grapes it isn't very clear. There is all kind of stuff still in it, like small bits of skins, pulp (grape guts) and various other things. A big component of the "stuff" (called "lees") is dead yeast cells, which are held in suspension during the pressing and carried by the pump after press. Most wineries have large tanks that they pump the wine into and the lees settles out. After a few days they pump it into barrels for the long aging process.

But, because we are a very small winery with a limited equipment budget we don't have settling tanks.

Thus, our only option is to pump directly to barrels including all the lees with the pressed wine. The only concern with this action is that, most winemakers believe (rightly so, in my experience), that if you leave the wine on the lees too long it can develop funky smells and tastes. So, pretty soon after we fill the barrels we have to empty them, leaving the lees behind, then clean out the barrels and return the clean wine to it. That process is called racking.

Typically, we will rack very early on, several days after pressing, then 3 or 4 times over the course of the barrel aging process. Each time we rack we sample the wine (woohoo!), determine how it is doing, and may make small adjustments. More on that later.