On arrival at the winery the condition of the grapes is evaluated and the 'fruit' is weighed. In most cases, the winemaking process begins with 'crushing'. This process lightly crushes the grapes and removes the fruit from the stems. This is achieved by a piece of equipment known as a 'Destemmer/Crusher'.
 From left: Checking condition
of the grapes, Weigh scale, Destemmer/Crusher
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Grapes are tipped into a funnel shaped
receival area
feeding into a hopper where a "screw"
moves the
grapes laterally into the body of the Crusher.
 From left: Grapes, Bins tipped
into Crush/De-stemmer, Hopper
|
Inside the Destemmer/Crusher
the grapes are
'batted' against a large sieve which the grapes pass through leaving
behind the stems. The internal screw mechanism delivers the
stems to the rear of the machine where they are collected and later
composted.
 From left: Hopper with internal
screw , Propeller and sieve, Rejected stems
|
Once parted from the stems, the grapes
pass
through rollers that lightly crush the grapes which are
then collected underneath the Destemmer/Crusher by an
open-mouthed 'must' pump. In the case of white
wines, the
'must' is then pumped through the heat exchanger to drop the
temperature before travelling to the press.
With red wines the 'must' is pumped to fermentation bins.
 From left:'Must' pumped to
fermentation bins, Sample juice is collected for testing, Crushed grape
'must'
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The crushing causes the red grapes to
release juice which is tested and adjusted prior to fermentation.