The grapes which are predestinated for wine are chosen from vines in specific areas of the village, mostly of those with high altimeter.
Linos
Another way to squash the grapes was Linos.In older times of the 19th century grapes were put in clay pots (danes), were footed until they melted and then thy were placed in earthenware jars.Linos was a built dry dock one meter above the ground.In this dock they used to empty the grapes and cover them with great wide boards. The one edge of nefkas was supported in a hole on the wall. The other passed from two vertical pillars and was expanded to the dry dock. In the edge it had a hole with a pass in which a wooden spindle screwed and unscrewed .The underneath of the spindle was supported on the ground in a heavy round rock. In the center of the spindle there was a hole in which a round piece of wood passed, whose edges were called ‘sierosia’ and were used as butts for the rolling of the spindle with the rock by two people .
When the spindle was rolling the balk with its own weight and the weight of the rock pressed the boards and then the boards pressed the grapes which it squashed.
That’s how the must was separated from the raki. Must was pouring in a clay pot, dani and then it went straight to the earthenware jars.
In a lot of houses there were also wooden presses for the squeeze of the grapes. Later on, there were used, and still are, local constructive mills which are wooden machines consisted of two parallel rollers in which there are hundreds of brads overhanging for about 1 centimeter. The rollers are turned manually in opposite rotations and mill the grapes in the earthenware jars so the zymosis could be achieved which usually takes 12 days .The grapes are pressed with the ‘spilantirin’ every day because the zymosis(fermentation) heat them .
STRAINING
When the fermentation is completed there is the straining. A small pot or a strainer is put in the middle of the earthenware jar and the wine is gathered by the calabash and is decanted in clean and pasteurized earthenware jar. The pasteurization is succeeded through brimstone smoke. In the jar there are the bunches and kernels and the rind of the grapes the so called zivana. The jars with the wine are left open for a few more days so the fermentation could be completed and be cleared from the lees in order to have the wine. Then the jar is closed with the puma, a round marble plaque and is closed with gypsum (plaster) so it can’t take air.
The wine was in the earthenware jar until there was a buyer, or in older times until it was transferred by the animals for sale.
The carrying of wines in the first decades of the 20th century was achieved by carts. After 1924 when the first cars arrived the wine was placed in barrels .The measure of the wine in the jars or barrels was done by the wine measurers with the use of ‘kartou’(quarter), a zinc pot of capacity of a ‘kouza’.
The viticulturists used to sell the wine before the Christmas and the Easter holidays. |
