Punching down the cap

Once our red wine grapes are run through crusher/stemmer, the resulting "Must" is pumped into a fermenting vessel. We have several stainless steel tank fermenters for this purpose, but some of the smaller lots are fermented in bins like those in the pictures below. As the must ferments, the berries will rise to the surface and form the "cap". To extract skin color from the berries, the cap must be churned back into the liquid.  This is called punching down the cap and it is done at least twice a day while the wine is actively fermenting. These pictures were taken on Sunday afternoon. Pablo drove from & to Napa to do this 20 minute job. Had I known it needed to be done, I could have saved him the trip.

Our intern "Pablo" punching down the cap

 

The Punch down tool

 

Mixing up the must