I was introduced to a concept I had not heard before: free run juice wines. A wine made with the juice that drains initially, but not pressed yet. I was told that is the superior juice.
I am not sure if I had been fed a line by a savvy wine salesperson or if that really is true.
Are there “free run” wines? I always thought the winemakers skill was blending the various parts of the pressing to get the final product.
Personally, I would never drink “Caged Juice” wines!
Your salesperson is whistling out his you-know-what. The way you quote him, it sounds like he’s suggesting that there are wines made from uncrushed grapes.
First, grapes are crushed. After fermentation, the skins, stems and other solids can be pressed to squeeze out the remaining juice. In the case of reds, that liquid can be added to the main “free run” juice to give the wine more oomph (e.g., grape solids, color, tannin). If the juice is already tannic, you might opt not to add the press wine. On the other hand, if the main wine has come with a somewhat soft structure, or a bit light in color, you might add the press wine. (If you don’t use it, it can be distilled. That’s how grappa is made.)
Whether to use the press wine is ultimately a winemaker’s call, but it’s quite normal to do it in many top wines. You can’t say that free-run juice always produces the better wine.
He made it sound like this was the juice that runs as it was fed into the press and prior to pressure.
You might find these articles helpful:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressing_(wine)#Free-run_versus_pressed_juice
That first link is whacko.
That is correct.
Was this a red or a white? I’ve only ever seen the differentiation with a white:
So funny, that’s the only ‘free run’ juice I’ve ever had also. Thought it was OK. Not great but priced right at $12.
If this was a good representation of what ‘free run’ juice can do on its own, I don’t think it’s worth seeking out Michael.
Bonus points for the marketing though. The whole ‘free run’ thing does make it sound delicious…
I don’t understand what’s supposed to be special about that steen. Since white wines are normally just free run juice (no press wine), what’s the big deal?
If you just crushed white wine grapes without pressing, you’d be wasting a huge amount of juice. Are you mixing up skin contact fermentation with pressing?
The only ways I can see getting 100% “free run” juice from whites is by separating juice that was at the bottom of the picking bin that accumulated during transport from vineyard to winery or by using the juice that would come out during dumping the white grapes in the press. You HAVE to press whites to get a usable about of juice.
However, at all of the places I’ve worked “press wine” is included in the “free run” portion up to a point, usually when the wine becomes too bitter/tannic to risk ruining the lot. And that “free run” makes up about 90% of what comes out of the press. In 2014 we did separate “free run,” “press” (actually hard press) and “hard press” (actually super hard press). The press wine can be evaluated later for use in blends or topping.
Edit: the second section applies for both reds and whites.
I’d be surprised if the OP wasn’t referring to red wine. It’s very common to barrel free run red wine directly from the fermentors before the pomace is put into the press. I’ve never heard a winemaker talking about free run white juice or wine, only red. I used to bottle my more “special” red wines with free run only, and blend the press wine (which had been barreled separately from the free run) with free run barrels into other wines, usually less expensive. However, over the years, I’ve come to the realization that wines are more complete when they have at least a bit of press wine blended in.
I recently started making Chardonnay without much actual pressing, so it is possible to get white juice from white grapes without pressing, but it’s hardly what I would call free run. It takes a lot of crushing to get juice out of white grapes, but not necessarily pressing.
Not all press wine is alike. The very first wine is basically free run if you’d given it a bit more time (and the pressure is so minimal you’re not getting any extra pressed skin extract).
The next generally is somewhat sweet and will end up being lighter wine than the rest cuz the berries that didn’t break during fermentation are finally giving up their juice…these typically are the less ripe firmer berries…whole cluster contributes a lot in this category, since it’s harder to break WC berries during ferm. I often find this an interesting part, depending on the amount of carbonic character it has, something I’m not generally wild about.
The next, up to 1 bar of pressure (or thereabouts), is imo closer to freerun than hard press wine, but it’s somewhere in between. This depends a lot on the character of the vineyard. I know some winemakers that, more often than not, like this barrel the best and will use this to ‘build’ their vineyard designate…i.e. define the base character and starting point of the VD.
Above ~1 bar is starting to get into hard press territory (again, depending on the character of the vineyard). As John said, this wine is used to build/enhance the structure of a blend…or it’s put into a large enough blend were it won’t much difference one way or another. Fining this wine (to remove tannins) is an option, esp when using it in a lower end wine.
How early you picked, i.e. how much acid you have, will move these boundaries around as well.
It seems like people are using “free press” to mean different things – (a) any juice that comes out before pressing and (b) the juice that flows out of the press before any real pressure is applied.
I thought (b) was the conventional definition because there isn’t enough (a) to make it commercially significant.
I wasn’t trying to give/get to a crisp definition of free run vs press. I was mostly rambling about what different things you typically can get out of pressing.
But I think distinction (of when press wine starts) is much less interesting than understanding why the various ‘components’ might be interesting and useful.
Yep, you are right. It was brought up in regard to Napa cabs.
‘Extra Virgin wine’ ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
I think I remember Alex saying that they only used free run for MACDONALD. Their “house” wine that they share with friends is the pressed juice.
Montenidoli Fiore Vernaccia bills itself as one as opposed to their Tradizionale which is pressed.