The 'présház' was a pretty sight when I walked in - the 'muslicak' (fruit flies) had taken over, they were literally everywhere. This won't affect the wine but it didn't look too pleasant.
I had to do the pressing on my own, and that wasn't a big deal - I'd seen how to use the press and had been told everything else to do. My first task however was to fill the barrel with whatever juice had already come out of the grapes. Using a hosepipe running down from the bath this probably about half-filled the 105 litre barrel.
Next I assembled the press and threw in the grapes - they all fitted in so I had only one pressing to do.
As each bucket was filled it was poured using a funnel into the barrel.
All was fine until the barrel filled up and I moved onto the second barrel... and it leaked! So instead I put the juice into a large plastic container for the time being. The first barrel now being full to the brim, meant I had to siphon some of it off into the plastic container - it's necessary to leave a good gap at the top of the barrel for the fermentation which needs air and will significantly bubble up.
I tasted the juice that came off from the grapes and amazingly after just one week in the bath it already tasted much more of wine than grape juice. (Some of the juice we had taken home after the harvest had also started to ferment in the fridge but it tasted quite different - like a fizzy fruit juice.)
As well as tidying and washing everything, I collected the dried-out grapes in a couple of containers - they will be just thrown back onto the soil. It would be possible to compost it but they don't.
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