On Sat, 02 Oct 2004 10:38:42 +0100, Steve Slatcher
> wrote:

>Hmmm. Except of course the standard practice in the Beaujolais Crus
>is pretty much to chuck whole bunches of uncrushed grapes into a vat
>and wait for the mass to ferment. The only nuances on this are,
>AFAIK, to ensure a sterile vat in the first place to discourage the
>action of batcteria, and to pump-over to get a good extraction of
>colour.

Oh, and I guess it is important that the CO2 (given off by the
yeast-fermentation of the grapes that get crushed at the bottom) stays
in the vat to encourage the fermentation of (and presumably to prevent
bacterial infection in) those at the top.

--
Steve Slatcher
http://pobox.com/~steve.slatcher