When the wine no longer runs, say twenty-four hours after loading the lever, the sacks are removed.
If the lees are not very thick, but little will be found in the sacks, and they may be refilled without removing it, and subjected to a second pressure. Then they must be thoroughly washed with water. Lye should not be used.
Where large quantities of lees are to be pressed, larger presses may be used, vats being employed instead of casks.
It is impossible to obtain all the wine by simple filtration without pressure, owing to the fact that the filters soon become foul, and the wine ceases to pass through.
If the first wine which runs off is turbid, it may be put by itself, and the clear wine caught separately. It is apt to run turbid when additional weight is applied.
Use of Dry Lees.—They have a certain value, and after being removed from the sacks they may be sold to the manufacturers of cream of tartar, if they are virgin lees. Lees from fined wines are of little value for this purpose. They may be dried on well-aired floors, or in the sun. They are also used for the production of pearlash by burning them. The ash produced is of a greenish gray color, and is crude pearlash. Good lees, perfectly dry, produce about 30 per cent. of this alkali.
Lees are also valuable as a fertilizer. Those from sweet wine contain considerable sugar, which may be utilized by fermenting and distilling the alcohol produced. This, however, will render them less valuable for making cream of tartar, a portion of which will be dissolved by washing.
MARC, OR POMACE—PIQUETTE.
Marc, or Pomace, is the residue remaining in the vat after the fermentation of red wine, or in the press, in making white wine. After being pressed, it is used in many parts of France to make a weak wine called piquette, for the use of the laborers. For this purpose are utilized all the soluble principles remaining in the marc, by the following treatment:
1. The Unfermented Pomace of White or of Red Wine not Entirely Fermented, is well broken and crumbled up so as to finely divide it, and introduced into tuns, which are then completely filled with water, or into a fermenting vat, adding double its weight of water. After giving it a thorough stirring and mixing, the first piquette is drawn off. After a maceration of three or four days, renewing the water several times, the saccharine matter and soluble salts which the marc contains are completely removed. Piquette is fermented in casks and cared for like new wine. The weakest is first consumed.