Pigéage is a french word that literally means “punching down”. The term refers to a wine-making process, which takes place during the initial stages of fermentation, when the cap of the grape (skin, stem and seeds) starts to appear on top of the vat in which the wine ferments. These floating grape solids are then punched, pressed or pushed back into the wine several times for the proper extraction of color, flavor and tannin from the cap grapes. And thus, this process of extraction is known as Pigéage
