Harvest 3 - Pressed for time

Vendanges - day 6

Once harvest begins there are a constant flow of grapes arriving. It’s important to monitor the quantities, for official purposes, and make sure the presses stay full and keep working.

It can take around 3 hours for one load of grapes to be fully pressed. Each time they refill the press they need to ensure they achieve the maximum weight of grapes for efficiency and consistent pressing. This press, owned by Charles Jolly Champagne, holds 4,000 kgs of grapes, or 80 or more boxes of grapes from the vineyards. Each box is loaded by two people, it’s heavy work.

The first press extracts the ‘cuvée’, whilst the juice from consecutive presses is called the taille. In some circumstances they will press the load up to four times.