PRESSURAGE à FROID février 2013   PRESSURAGE à FROID is a purely physical technique. It brings no foreign elements to the harvest, and it RESPECTS both the TERROIR and the VINTAGE.    Pressurage à froid, or cold pressing, was discovered by Monsieur Pierre SUDRAUD, Director of the Laboratoire Central de Bordeaux à la Direction Générale de la Consommation, du Contrôle et de la Répression des Fraudes, and Monsieur Serge CHAUVET, an inventor at the same posting, an expert on the wines of Sauternes. Initially called Cryoextraction Sélective or Cryosélection, the concept of Pressurage à froid was introduced in June of 1986 at the 26th Congrès National d’œnologie held at Saumur-Fontevraud. It was made official in 1987 by Professeur Pascal RIBEREAU-GAYON, Professor of œnologie at the Faculté des Sciences de Bordeaux. He qualified the technique as 'pressurage à froid' and used this nomenclature based upon scientific evidence that remains unrefuted to this day. Soon after the European Union declared the technique as legally usable. Pressurage à froid is a technique we use at Baumard to control the temperature of the ripe grapes before they are loaded into the press. It is not an ADDITIVE technique. We do not add any foreign substances to the press - no sugars, no concentrated musts, no sweeteners. It is not a SUBTRACTIVE technique. Unlike other systems, like reverse osmosis, only a small fraction of water is extracted from the total amount of juice, only the less good. It is a SELECTIVE technique. A specific selection of grapes. We are not puncturing the grapes, dividing the individual internal components that make up grape juice as in other techniques. In a document published by the Chambre d’Agriculture of the Gironde (30/09/2005), Alain DESENNE wrote, 'cryo-sélection, is applied to whole grapes and is treated as a sort or an additional supplement to harvest, not enrichment'. It is a NEUTRAL technique. At no time does the juice contact or traverse any foreign body or the skin of the grape. It is an ecological function. It is a CHEMICAL-FREE technique. There are no chemicals, avoiding any extraneous chemical reactions. We do not change the physical make up, nor does it affect the natural equilibrium of the juice obtained. It is a SEPERATION technique. It is simply a selection of grapes, some are chosen, others are eliminated. The cold temperature simply seperates the grapes, those which by their deficient constitution are frozen solid, from those that have ripened properly and are thus unfrozen left unharmed and unchanged. Only these grapes, that have remained in their natural state, are pressed as normal and the juice extracted. The frozen, immature, berries are unpressable.   How does Pressurage à froid affect an A.O.C wine? Respect of Terroir. The integrity and identity of the land is respected as the juice from the press is free of any foreign interference or intervention. Respect of the Vintage. A tasting of more than twenty vintages since 1989 to the present, organized anonymously and independently proves this. Each wine is subtly different, yet at the core of each, is the beating heart of the appellation. Sceptics argue that cold pressing is a method of levelling out vintage variation. For example by standradising the sugar degree each vintage. However the price, in attempting to attain 20° alcohol strength in smaller production years, would be too high to justify its use because of the amount of berries not being pressed. Cold pressing confirms the general shape of the vintage, because unlike methods like chapitalization that add a single component to the juice and visibly disrupt the natural equilibrium of the must, cold pressing is selecting the best grapes that carry the spirit of the vintage. Cold pressing allows the production of a wine true to its vintage. Autolimitation of increase of potential alcohol. A practitioner must determine the degree of cold necessary to manage to preserve not only the grapes having the potential alchohol corresponding to the desired wine. Good powers of observation knowledge and savoir-faire are required. Many factors are vintage sensitive, such as picking dates, conditions of the harvest etc. The practitioner must guard against too much freezing to prevent having a wine with too much alcohol and/or sugar. His error could be further compounded by an substantial reduction of total juice. A reduction of juice has economical implications as there is dramatically less wine to sell. No increase in volume. Our cold pressing causes no increase in volume of wine from grapes picked, as a portion of the harvest is eliminated. This is in stark contrast to chapitalisation, which produces approximately 0.63 litres extra per kilogram of sugar used. This method of enrichment is clearly advantageous when the price of the wine is high. It is only a separation of grapes chosen to make up the desired wine: a selection - a supplementary ‘trie’ - in order to choose grapes appropriate to meet the specific requirements of the desired wine while observing the rules of the appellation. At Baumard, Pressurage à froid is not an extraction, an enrichment, or a concentration. Our restraint and caution, necessary when using cold pressing, is an asset to the morality of our process of making wine.     For Sweet Wines Cold pressing results in consistency of quality. In wet years, waiting for over ripeness to occur can often lead to a reduction in yield due to the presence of gray or black rot. This rot can literally spoil good grapes that normally botrytise. Just as each ‘trie’ through the vineyard sorts the grapes, cold pressing saves the quality of grapes and eliminates the addition of gray and black rot grapes in the final juice. This protects the final quality of the wine and the consistency of this quality. This occurs even in 'difficult' years with plenty of rain and humid conditions, which is when this consistency of quality is needed most.   Cold pressing does not replace manual ‘tries’ or labour. With the use of cold pressing, more grapes can be taken in subsequent ‘tries’. Less grapes are left to the end of harvest when the risk of total loss is at its highest. This reduction of black rot in the final must is compounded by a few other factors that have huge implications on the final quality of the finished wine. Cold pressing gives us a reduction in off flavors. Non-noble rotted grapes and grapes with advanced black or gray rot are frozen. This excludes them from pressing. With the use of this technique we have a lower total of volatile acidity as the juice of berries showing signs of advanced grey or black rot are eliminated.   A major asset to morality, control and enforcement. Cold pressing puts aside any suspicion on the raw material as the amount that is retained after the pressing is the only way to ensure future quality without any exogenous or unorthodox interference. It removes the need to have controls that are dependent on approximations, or that are effectively obsolete and impossible to apply and enforce. Only the juice that comes from the press is trustworthy. And it is at this time that controls should be applied and enforced. It is in this way that cold pressing assures the responsibility of winemakers and is arguably an operation that ensures good morality for a better quality.   The principle of cold pressing. Considering the heterogeneity of berries in a bunch of grapes and the absence of a practical and efficient manner in which to sort individual grapes in a bunch, only a specific, highly calibrated detector of sugar content the grape can effectively select grapes of suitable quality. This highly calibrated detector is nature. We know that water becomes ice at 0°. However if there is a substance - salt for example - added to the water the transition from liquid to solid (freezing) requires the temperature to be slightly lower. This principle is roughly the same for sugars suspended in the water of grape juice. Lowering the temperature results in the water, held in grapes that are unripe and have less suspended sugars, to become frozen. Grapes with higher amounts of suspended sugars remain unfrozen. The application of this principle. This is permitted by the technical progress of modern mechanical engineering and its proper use. This is also a facet of contemporary know-how. This degree of skill can be legitimately expected from a modern day producer of A.O.C. wines. There are costs involved with installation and upkeep but these costs are proportional to volumes harvested, therefore this method does not penalize small farms. It is not an industrial process as many detractors of the method would argue. Its implementation is based on a modern technology of the production of cold, but its application requires the timeless expertise of a craftsman.   In conclusion. In 1989 we were the 11th French vigneron to use cold pressing and the first in the Loire Valley. During this period of solitary learning we gradually abandonned old methods like capitalization. Whatever the vintage we have not resorted to these old ways. For more than twenty years our wines have proven to not only be worthy of our A.O.C. but have been leaders in their categories. What remains of these older vintages sitting in our private collection can serve as an exhibit for any official body to confirm the merits of cold pressing. This is a personal testimony, a testimony of a practitioner who has used this technique to accomplish the long term goal of making high quality, unique wines on a consistent basis. The other long term goal is to be honest and truthful about our wine making techniques, both the well-known methods and the more obscure. It is our hope that through this honesty that our hard work and dedication is appreciated by others in our profession.   Jean & Florent Baumard La Giraudière, February 2013