page_title: History of the wine press
section_title: Press fractions
hierarchical_section_title: History of the wine press / Middle ages and the increasing popularity of the basket press / Press fractions
caption_attribution_description: example of an old basket wine press
context_page_description: The history of the wine press and of pressing is nearly as old as the history of wine itself with the remains of wine presses providing some of the longest-serving evidence of organised viticulture and winemaking in the ancient world. The earliest wine press was probably the human foot or hand, crushing and squeezing grapes into a bag or container where the contents would ferment.
  The pressure applied by these manual means was limited and these early wines were probably pale in colour and body, and eventually ancient winemakers sought out alternative means of pressing their wine. By at least the 18th dynasty, the ancient Egyptians were employing a "sack press" made of cloth that was squeezed with the aid of a giant tourniquet. The use of a wine press in winemaking is mentioned frequently in the Bible but these presses were more elaboration of treading lagars where grapes that were tread by feet with the juice running off into special basins.
context_section_description: As the use of the basket press became more popular, wineries and wine writers started to make a distinction between the quality of wine that came from different levels of pressing. The highest quality was the vin de goutte or the "free run" juice that was released by the mere weight of the grapes squeezing each other as they were loaded into the press. This was usually the lightest in colour and body and was often kept separate from the vin de presse that came from pressing which was darker and had more tannins. In 1600, French wine writer Olivier de Serres noted in his work Théâtre d'Agriculture that it was a tradition associated only with the wines of Anjou in the Loire Valley to blend in the vin de goutte with the vin de presse. Much like the ancient Roman pressed wine lorca, Middle Age peasants often drank piquette from the left over grape skins after pressing.
  No where was the analysis of the difference in press fractions more astute than in the Champagne wine region where Dom Pérignon was recorded in 1718 by biographer Canon Godinot to have laid out these specifications for how the press fractions of juice destined to be Champagne should be handled. First the pressing were to happen quickly, as soon after harvest as possible to keep the juice at its freshest and to avoid any coloring from the red wine grapes of Pinot noir and Pinot Meunier. The  free run vin de goutte was considered too delicate and lacking on its own to make fine Champagne and it was sometimes discarded or used for other wines. The first and second pressings (called tailles or cut since the pomace cake was literally cut with ropes, chains or paddles to remove it between pressings) were the most ideal for sparkling wine production. The juice of the third pressing was considerable acceptable but the fourth pressing (called the vin de taille) was rarely used and all other pressings after that (the vins de pressoirs were considered too harsh and colored to be of any value in Champagne production.
caption: A 16th-century basket press
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