Monday, February 16, 2009

Lève-fût

I’ve spent the day racking the 2007 Passetoutgrains, to get it ready for bottling next month. I’ve written about racking before (here) so I won’t repeat myself, but I did want share a few photos of the ingenious lève-fût (barrel lift) that I use to recover the last few litres of clear wine, once the barrel is almost empty.
Hopefully the photos make the principle clear – turning the ratchet handle pulls the hook attached to the rear of the barrel. That pulling force is reacted by the ‘legs’ that push down on the front of the barrel and a horizontal arm that pushes against the wall. The net result is that the rear of barrel very slowly lifts and wine starts to flow from the spigot. The barrel is tipped further until the wine starts to run very slightly cloudy at which point the spigot tap is closed and the few litres of cloudy liquid left in the barrel are sent to the distillery.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home