🍷 Grape treading
An old method: grapes are crushed with bare feet in a vat or stone trough.
Grape treading is an old way of getting juice from grapes: people crushed the berries with bare feet in a vat or stone trough. It is one of the oldest winemaking techniques, thousands of years old. Treading is known in Greece, Italy, Georgia, Armenia and other countries.
Feet are used because it is comparatively gentle: the berries burst, while the seeds and stems stay whole, so the wine does not pick up extra bitterness. People walk in the vat in rhythm, sometimes to music, usually holding on to one another or to a bar. The skins mix with the juice and fermentation begins.
In Portugal this treading is done in lagares, shallow stone troughs, and some ports are still made this way. In Georgia grapes were trodden in a satsnakheli, a wooden trough. In the Areni-1 cave in Armenia archaeologists found an ancient treading vat with a channel.
Today most wines are made with machines, which are faster and cleaner. But treading survives as a tradition and a way to show an old craft. It belongs to the crushing of grapes. Alcohol is for adults.
What it includes
How it connects to Wine
🍷 Grape treading ← then ← 🍷 Crushing → kind of → 🍷 Winemaking → kind of → 🍷 Wine
Links
- Previous step
- 🍷 Crushing, 🍷 Areni-1 cave
- Next step
- 🍷 Lagar, 🍷 Satsnakheli
- Part of
- 🍷 Crushing
Frequently asked questions
What is grape treading?
An old way of getting juice: grapes are crushed with bare feet in a vat or trough.
Why were grapes trodden by foot?
It is gentle: the berries burst while seeds and stems stay whole.
Where is treading done in lagares?
In Portugal, especially in making some ports.