Cluster, debris sorting prior to crush...worth it?

[NorCal]

I plan on doing 4 ferments this upcoming season and in total with my wine making buddies I would say around 300 gallons. My thought was building a 4 foot shute that I would pitch fork the clusters on to and helpers would remove any obviously bad clusters as well as leaves and debris.

I purchase the grapes picked into my macrobin, and while the quality of the grapes and the amount of debris are overall very good, it could be better. My question is if his added step will result in a better wine, with a difference you can taste?

 

[JohnT]

Is sorting worth it?? You bet your bottom dollar!!!!

this is for two reasons..

First is any type a debris that might damage your equipment. Rocks, Nails, Pieces of wood just to name a few. Once, we even found an old harvesting knife! No telling what that would have done to my crusher/destemmer.

The other reason is to remove the leaves. Leaves (IMHO) bring an unwanted variety of tannins to the party. The quality of my wine improved drastically once we started sorting.

During crush, I have an average of 8 people sorting all at once. I have to laugh, though, at the first timers. At first, they try to remove every fleck and speck that is not grape or stem. After an hour, and only 1 or 2 lugs complete, they get further instruction to not be so "picky". Just remove the large items, forget about the crumbs, and move, move, move!

 

[Whombat3]

We take it a little further and crush and destem into two small tubs, one directly below the crusher rollers and the other under at the other end. The jacks that fall into the second one are then easier to remove and the juice put back into the must. The taste improves.

 

[NorCal]

Thanks for the replies. This gives me some excellent ideas and I like the idea of different sections, post crushing. I'm thinking of building a chute that would serve as a sorting area between the macro bin and crusher. Any thoughts?

 

[JohnT]

We take it a little further and crush and destem into two small tubs, one directly below the crusher rollers and the other under at the other end. The jacks that fall into the second one are then easier to remove and the juice put back into the must. The taste improves.

Could you please expand on this? I am not too sure that I am following what you are saying here.

 

[JohnT]

Thanks for the replies. This gives me some excellent ideas and I like the idea of different sections, post crushing. I'm thinking of building a chute that would serve as a sorting area between the macro bin and crusher. Any thoughts?

I tried doing that, but unless you have some sort of conveyer belt the grapes will be hard to move. We ended up going with just a number of bussing "bins" that I bought at a restaurant supply store. They have just the right size and construction for handling when full.

 

[NorCal]

I got inspired to take the destemmer/crusher apart, to see if I could destem, sort the berries, then make another pass through the crusher. I would need to replace one of the shafts with the a roller, to one without. It may just be more than I want to do, while I have a ton of grapes and a handful of people looking at me.