Whole Bunch Pressing

Perhaps the most important characteristic of a sparkling wine base wine is the acidity. By choosing the right harvest time, the grapes still have a high acidity and in order to obtain this in the must, a whole grape pressing is important. In this case, the grapes are placed undamaged and as a whole grape on the press and then slowly pressed. The areas of the grape that burst first due to the pressure form the "cuvée". These are the highest in acidity and the highest quality.

A maceration time would leach potassium from the grapes and thus buffer the acidity to taste less intense. In addition, the tannin leaching and the various partly intense aroma precursors in the sparkling wine base wine is inappropriate. For this reason, we divide our press fractions. The first 50% of the pressing is laid separately and fermented individually. Then the press cake is broken open and pressed again. These last 15-20% are also fermented individually. For the final cuvée, only those first 50% of the pressing are used, which are particularly clear and acidic.

We use an old basket press for our pressing. The advantage of this classic technique lies in the filtering effect of the tall press cake. As a result, the must runs very clearly and subsequent sedimentation or prefiltration is not necessary. The price for such high quality is a relatively long pressing time, which can often amount to 12 hours.