Pressed

I love the twists and turns it took for “Heartpress Fermentations” to materialize. Speaking simply of deciding on this blog's title, it was not a monotonous process, not as easy as squishing a grape would guarantee a splish of coloured juice. Editing came swiftly last: only after my preceding excitement at discovering the content. Cool enough that heartpress fermentations did not appear on Google search, so it felt like I was the first to publicize these words together.

Placing "heart" where "wine" usually goes seems to humanize a traditionally industrial action. Winepresses are lucratively fed grapes to flatten out into juice. It is messy stuff, the pressing. Essentially and simply, something is taken and changed into a different form, here grapes for juice. This pressing is the first step in the grapes' transformation. Contrary to fairy tale versions, juice does not simply pour out the other end of winepresses. Instead, the pressed grapes exit as a thicker liquid complete with stems, skins, seeds. An array of mish-mash, it floats and flows. Messy at pressing, messy at exiting, purity is still the destination. Writing borne of the heart-press is distilled writing. What is said, is truly said. Excess is skimmed out just as skins, seeds, stems are taken out of pre-wines. After discovering heartpress, the word fermentation came to me, and in turn I chose it despite knowing little about its logistics. In that sense the process held a tantalizing mysteriousness. I sensed in it the aroma of something that happens silently, in the dark, away from public eyes and without.... oxygen. Apparently the yeasts that turn grape sugars into ethanol do it without oxygen. Humans get desperate without oxygen. But those anaerobes, they shun the very airy element that sustains human lives. Fermentation reflects writing somehow. Absence of oxygen can initiate fermentation, changing grape mash into alcohol. As wine-makers know, a timely absence of something can be the very thing that motivates much cherished transformation, and the beauty in that imagery writes so poignantly.