At the gateway to Napa Valley, this prominent monument is visible from the highway for visitors coming in from San Francisco. The statue depicts the traditional wooden basket press where an auger is cranked down onto the grapes inside. Juice flows out the basket's slats into a vat where it can be transferred into fermentation tanks to start the winemaking process. Many modern wineries employ a cylindrical steel 'bladder press' to extract juice from the grape clusters. Other wineries use a hydraulic stainless steel version of this traditional style basket press, whose basic design goes back centuries. Winemakers tell us that the basket press is the 'gentle way' to extract juice from the harvested grapes! #napavalley #grapecrusher #basketpress #winemaker
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