Foot treading and the plague

[JacobH]

The Symingtons have announced that they are not foot-treading this harvest at Vesuvio. They say it is the first time “in more than 100 years” which rather raises the question as to when it last didn’t happen and why (phylloxera, perhaps?).

I dare say they won’t be alone and so thought it might be interesting to start a thread to keep track of the different decisions the different shippers make.

I imagine some will just quietly move over to mechanical treading (particularly those that already have elaborate systems which they use for some or all of their wines) but I think it will be a real challenge for some producers like Quinta do Noval who have been almost absolutest in their rejection of anything other than treading for their premium Ports. Perhaps they will just write this year off as if it were a bad harvest? Or try to do it with fewer people?

[Alex Bridgeman]

I think the hardest challenge is going to be for the smaller producers who don't have mechanical lagars. They are going to really struggle to get their grapes pressed if they are not able to have foot treading. Or perhaps this is just a choice being made, with this being the one option to keep people safe compared to having to isolate your picking and treading team for 2 weeks before putting them into a COVID free bubble, in the same way the UK agircultural industry is isolating fruit and vegetable picking teams.

[DRT]

The Symingtons have announced that they are not foot-treading this harvest at Vesuvio. They say it is the first time “in more than 100 years” which rather raises the question as to when it last didn’t happen and why (phylloxera, perhaps?).

I dare say they won’t be alone and so thought it might be interesting to start a thread to keep track of the different decisions the different shippers make.

I imagine some will just quietly move over to mechanical treading (particularly those that already have elaborate systems which they use for some or all of their wines) but I think it will be a real challenge for some producers like Quinta do Noval who have been almost absolutest in their rejection of anything other than treading for their premium Ports. Perhaps they will just write this year off as if it were a bad harvest? Or try to do it with fewer people?

All of the big producers, including Noval, have had mechanical treaders for about three decades. In my opinion the benefits of the foot-treading tradition has been a bit of a myth throughout that time. It is a very romantic and evocative experience to see or participate in foot-treading but the reality is that the vast majority of the Port produced in the past three decades, including VP from the large producers, has been mechanically trodden. I think the challenges of 2020 might be the death nell that the industry has been putting off for years. An industry that can no longer afford or accommodate cheap manual labour is an industry that needs to embrace a new solution.

[Alex Bridgeman]

The Symingtons have announced that they are not foot-treading this harvest at Vesuvio. They say it is the first time “in more than 100 years” which rather raises the question as to when it last didn’t happen and why (phylloxera, perhaps?).

I dare say they won’t be alone and so thought it might be interesting to start a thread to keep track of the different decisions the different shippers make.

I imagine some will just quietly move over to mechanical treading (particularly those that already have elaborate systems which they use for some or all of their wines) but I think it will be a real challenge for some producers like Quinta do Noval who have been almost absolutest in their rejection of anything other than treading for their premium Ports. Perhaps they will just write this year off as if it were a bad harvest? Or try to do it with fewer people?

All of the big producers, including Noval, have had mechanical treaders for about three decades. In my opinion the benefits of the foot-treading tradition has been a bit of a myth throughout that time. It is a very romantic and evocative experience to see or participate in foot-treading but the reality is that the vast majority of the Port produced in the past three decades, including VP from the large producers, has been mechanically trodden. I think the challenges of 2020 might be the death nell that the industry has been putting off for years. An industry that can no longer afford or accommodate cheap manual labour is an industry that needs to embrace a new solution.

Many smaller producers may not be able to afford their own mechanical lagars. I wonder if this will mean a growth in cooperatives, or at least in cooperative wineries or mobile, shared equipment like we already see with mobile bottling lines.

[Andy Velebil]

All rubbish. Foot treading must go on for top end VP’s. how are we gonna have great VP’s the likes of Dow 1963/66/70/77/...2017, Graham’s 1994/97/..., etc without it?

(For those that can’t understand the irony of my post, Dows since 1963 has been made with an autovinifier, and almost all the top Symington ports have been made with mechanical treading for many years.)

[JacobH]

I was really struck by how adamant Christian Seely was about the benefits of treading at the virtual tasting earlier in the year. I expected him to say something like “we don’t just do it for the show but because we think it is helpful” which is essentially the standard line since it slightly fudges how much is being produced mechanically. However, he went on to say that they hadn’t gone down the mechanical route for all of their products since they had experimented with blind tasting wines from the same batches of grapes which had been vinified in different ways and could still tell the difference. I presume QdN would be able to fund the capital investment to fully kit out their wineries if they wanted to do it and there would be sound cost-saving reasons for doing it if possible.

[Andy Velebil]

Many years ago I took part in a blind tasting of samples of the same grapes, one foot treaded, one Symington robotic lagar (the one that’s heated and simulates a human foot), and one regular mechanical treading.

I did pick out each one, luckily. However, while a significant difference between regular mechanical and the other two, there was almost no difference between robotic lagar and foot treading.

I forget exactly why i picked the foot treading but I recall it was a toss up and there was just a tiny something that I liked it better at that particular moment.

There were others with me and IIRC part of them picked out the regular mechanical treaded grapes as well. The other were a toss up in their order. Order of preference was all over the map. Obviously personal preference for styles came into play.

[uncle tom]

Foot treading will resume, for the simple reason that it's good for tourism and general publicity.

The robotic treading machines will probably take over the bulk of the work in volume terms, but I can't see many producers ripping out all their lagars.

[JacobH]

Many years ago I took part in a blind tasting of samples of the same grapes, one foot treaded, one Symington robotic lagar (the one that’s heated and simulates a human foot), and one regular mechanical treading.

I did pick out each one, luckily. However, while a significant difference between regular mechanical and the other two, there was almost no difference between robotic lagar and foot treading.

This is what I would have expected to be the case on the basis that it shouldn’t be too difficult with all the years that this has been explored to work out a way of applying c.70kg of mass through a a pair of foot-long objects to the grapes in a fairly realistic way! There’s an argument that there might be a bit more consistency, too. I bet the treading is a bit more through on certain nights than others when done conventionally.

The robotic treading machines will probably take over the bulk of the work in volume terms, but I can't see many producers ripping out all their lagars.

I presume that if foot treading goes out except for publicity purposes, many places will work on putting robotic feet into their existing lagars rather than starting again from scratch. I can’t see why that should be too difficult to do since I presume most of them are computerised pneumatic devices.

[JacobH]

In an article rather curiously entitled “No foot-treading for Fladgate this year it has been announced that TFP are not foot treading this year. Apparently, that will mean there will be no wines produced at vineyards which don’t have mechanical equipment, most notably Quinta do Panascal. Adrian Bridge is quoted as suggesting that post-COVID they will attempt to do the traditional pick-during-the-day; tread-during-the-night but not do any treading during the day. He also comments it has been a rush to get everything in, due to the heat.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are some nice pictures of small parcels being trodden at Quinta da Pedra Alta in barrels. Some chatter on twitter suggested they are going using the lagars, too, but with bubbles of pickers.

[Alex Bridgeman]

I’ve been surprised at the number of mechanical lagars I’ve seen pictures of posted on FB and Instagram. Wineries I had no idea were equipped with mechanical treaders.

[Andy Velebil]

And also seeing one or two people treading in a lagar wearing hip waders.

[JacobH]

I’ve been surprised at the number of mechanical lagars I’ve seen pictures of posted on FB and Instagram. Wineries I had no idea were equipped with mechanical treaders.

I wonder if they have been able to kit them out over the last six months? Or were just very good at hiding the mechanical parts since it doesn’t look as good?!

[JacobH]

I’ve seen a few photographs online, like this one from the IVDP or this video from Quinta do Vale Meão which looks like they are doing the first part of the treading (the “corte”, I think) in a fairly standard way, except for not interlocking arms. Not quite convinced that that will make a huge difference to the risk of covid-19 transmission but then I’m not a doctor...