Pressing the grapes

After the grapes are picked they first go into the daráló (mill) which removes the stalks and squeezes them a bit.

The bath fills up with the yummy grapes...

Some of the juice runs out of the bath - either directly into the barrel ...

or into a bucket which is poured into the barrel...

Next the grapes are lifted from the bath into the press...

the top is put on the press...

the screw is turned ...

and the juice - called "must" in Hungarian - flows out into buckets, and it is poured into the barrels using a funnel.

Once no more juice can be obtained, the press is partially dismantled, the pulp is removed and dumped unceremoniously onto a tarpaulin on the ground.

After all the grapes have been taken from the bath and pressed, the collected pulp is scooped up and returned to the bath. It will sit there for about 3 days, after which it will be pressed again - a lot more juice comes out and this "second pressing" is better quality.

This is how the grapes look after the first pressing, they are far from being dried out:

The pressed juice turned out to have a sugar level of about 18 degrees.  That's reasonably good but since the sugar level determines the alcohol level in the end, it will need sugar added to bring it up to 20-21 degrees. I'll write about this in a follow-up post.