FERMENTATION

The Pinot Noir that was picked last Friday has just commenced fermenting. It's been cooler than usual so the ferments haven't been too vigorous--we often have to cool them down a little so they don't get out of control but so far, that hasn't been necessary this year. 
Here's a picture of the grapes in the fermenter immediately after crushing on Friday:

It looks pretty messy, doesn't it? It's really just a mass of grape skins, seeds, pulp and juice. There's no real aroma and while it tastes sweet with all the natural grape sugar, it certainly doesn't taste at all like wine. The sugar level here is 12.7 Baume or 23 Brix (that's slightly more than 230 g/L of sugar, or 23%. That's why grapes make such good wine--they have more sugar than any other fruit).
After a few days, when fermentation begins, the carbon dioxide produced gets caught up in the grape skins and lifts them up to form what is known as the "cap". This cap of skins effectively sits on top of the juice so we have two distinct layers.
Here's a picture of the cap, taken today from the same position as the photo above:

I hope you can see a difference. The task now is to make sure we mix the two layers to extract the colour and flavour from the skins. We do this twice a day, sometimes by pumping over (taking fermenting juice from the bottom of the vat and circulating it over the cap) as in the picture below or by plunging the cap (breaking it up and pushing it down into the juice) with a large paddle. That's hard work!