Everyone was relieved that we only had 9 tonnes of sauvignon blanc to hand–harvest today, as we spent much of the day racking the sauvignon blanc juice that had been cold-settling for two days. 38.5 tonnes of grapes harvested on the 30th had yielded 23 000 litres of free-run juice (597 litres/tonne) and 4040 litres of press juice (105 litres/tonne).Not only do we keep the press fractions separate, but every vineyard is pressed and settled separately to ensure the highest quality.Clarification of the juice takes place by letting it settle under gravity for two days at between 8 and 12˚ C .Racking involves the decanting of the juice from the sediment and this sediment that forms at the bottom of the tank is then put through a lees filter to recover the juice. This can be up to 10% of the volume or more depending on the skin contact time - the longer the skin contact, the more sediment that needs to settle.
This photo shows Frans Ben, our cellar foreman at the lees filter with a solid cake of lees about to be discarded.
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