Do the people who crush grapes with their feet in winemaking wash their feet first?

Question

In small-scale winemaking, the wine grapes are crushed by bare feet. Are these feet washed prior to crushing? Do they ever wear shoes or is it always bare feet?

Answer 1

All those people who say that commercial wines are never foot pressed. cannot have never seen D'Arenburg wines from Australia.

Some of their wines have a 'foot trod' logo on the bottles --see the Winemaking page on their website, and the info for their d'Arrys Original Grenache says "Gentle handling through the winery includes crushing through the Demoisy crusher, open fermentation with the traditional heading down boards and foot treading followed by basket pressing through the 19th century ‘Coq’ and ‘Bromley & Tregoning’ basket presses and then into almost 18 months barrel maturation in old French and American oak." - See http://www.darenberg.com.au/default2.php

Foot trod grapes are used in Port wines from Portugal and I know some wineries in South Africa that do it.

At Port winery Quinta do Passadouro - 'The wines will continue to be made completely traditionally, "for as long as we can afford to" says Bohrmann, explaining that labour costs of foot-treading grapes are huge compared to modern presses. But Jorge Borges insists the foot can produce a uniquely soft wine style, with maximum extraction of flavour without breaking the pips and releasing bitter components.' see http://wine-pages.com/features/passadouro.htm


I am sure they do wash their feet first but I wouldn't worry about the feet. You shoulld see the state of the grapes, covered in all sorts of detritis. The act of fermenting will purify the juice.

In some places they wear rubber boots.

Answer 2

The Wine that is sold in stores, no matter the country, is not crushed by feet. The method has been discontinued many years ago. While you can still find a few places that will have you crush grapes with your feet you will wash your feet very, very, very well if the winery is going to try and make the wine. However these places are few and far between due to the possibility of lawsuits.

So the quick answer is bare feet, washed, no shoes.

Hope this is helpful

Answer 3

Crush Feet

Answer 4

Feet Crush

Answer 5

i should certainly hope so,my knowledge extends only to what i have seen on various tv programes,health standards would demand this as the least requirment,i have not seen shoes being worn during this procedure,i would hope that a full medical check is carried out before a person could venture bare footed into a tub of succulent grapes.

Answer 6

crush grapes with their feet that's very unsanitary! even if they wash their feet the grape juice will no doubt perspiration from their smelly sweaty feet yukee! Don't give me a glass! :(((((((

Answer 7

They probably wipe their feet a little bit, but no, i'm pretty sure that they do not sterilize their feet prior. But my cousin did fall over in one before and got his whole left side red!

Answer 8

i'm afraid some don't wash, like surgeons wash their hands and arms before a procedure. but the crushing part is prior to the distillation/refinement stages, so i guees we should all be able to sleep soundly at night. i think. ;)

Answer 9

No one crushes grapes with their feet anymore

Answer 10

The wine is ran through so many things it gets "clean" before its bottled.