Press Wine

Press wine is the juice mechanically extracted from grape pomace — the skins, seeds, and stems — after the free-run juice has already drained away. Because it has spent more time in contact with the solid parts of the berry and is squeezed out under pressure, it carries far more tannin, color, and phenolic material than the gentler free-run fraction. In French it is known as vin de presse, set in contrast to vin de goutte, the free-run wine. On its own it can taste firm and astringent, but in skilled hands it becomes one of the winemaker's most useful tools for shaping a finished blend.

How Press Wine Is Made

A grape berry naturally releases only part of its juice when crushed. Roughly 60 to 70 percent flows out as free-run juice under the weight of the fruit itself; the remaining 30 to 40 percent stays locked inside the pomace and has to be coaxed out with mechanical pressure. That pressed fraction is what winemakers call press wine.

The timing of pressing depends on the style. In white winemaking the grapes are usually pressed immediately after crushing, before fermentation begins, so that the juice spends as little time as possible with the skins. In red winemaking the opposite is true — pressing happens at or near the end of fermentation, once the desired extraction of color and tannin has been achieved. Champagne takes the idea further still, historically dividing the pressings into the cuvée and vin de goutte, the valued tailles from the first and second pressings, and the harsher vins de pressoirs from the very end, which are rarely used in fine wine.

Each successive press cycle pulls out progressively more phenolic material. A Riesling example often cited shows free-run juice at around 306 mg/L of phenolics, the first press at 607 mg/L, and the third press at nearly 2,000 mg/L. Press wine also carries more suspended solids, gums, and proteins, which means it needs extra clarification before it is ready to work with.

Character and Use in Blending

Compared with free-run juice, press wine is a different beast. It tends to have lower titratable acidity, higher pH, sometimes higher volatile acidity, and substantially more tannin and color compounds. Tasted on its own it can come across as astringent, bitter, and a little rough around the edges.

What makes it valuable is precisely those phenolics. Used in the right proportion they add body, grip, structural backbone, and the kind of tannic scaffolding that helps a wine age. Standard industry practice is to keep press wine and free-run wine separate through aging and then blend roughly 85 to 90 percent free-run with 10 to 15 percent press wine, adjusting by taste.

The winemaker's job is to find the sweet spot where press wine contributes structure and longevity without tipping the blend into harshness. Done well, the press fraction disappears into the final wine — you do not taste it directly, but you feel it in the wine's shape, persistence, and capacity to evolve in bottle.