The Punch-Down

During fermentation the skins float. They rise and pack together into a solid crust across the top of the tank. Leave them there and they dry out and stop giving anything to the wine underneath.

So somebody pushes them back down.

That's the job. A wooden tool, a long handle, and a person leaning their weight into a tank of hot must, several times a day, for two or three weeks.

I watched it once and thought this is a strange thing to still be doing by hand. There are machines. Pumps that do the whole cycle on a timer while everyone sleeps.

Then somebody explained why they still do it themselves. You can feel the cap through the handle. How thick it is. How much it pushes back. Whether it's warm or starting to cool. A timer gives you none of that.

The Italian word is follatura, which sounds far more romantic than it is. It's hot, it smells enormous, and by day ten your shoulders hate you.

Cellars are quiet places, mostly. This is the loud part. A cap breaking sounds somewhere between a wet sigh and a door giving way.

Then the tank goes still. Over the next few hours the skins drift back up. Somebody returns and does it again.

Nothing about it is efficient. It's a person deciding, every four hours, that this is worth doing properly.