🍷 Sorting table

A sorting table is a table or moving belt on which harvested grapes are picked over before crushing: rotten, unripe and damaged berries, leaves and other debris are taken out. The International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) defines sorting as choosing healthy bunches and separating green, damaged or rotten berries, and considers it essential for quality wines.

The bunches are tipped onto the table and workers on both sides take out everything unwanted by hand; if needed, bunches are also grouped by ripeness. The grapes then go on to destemming and crushing, so only the selected berries end up in the must. Sorting can also be done right in the vineyard, and large wineries add optical sorters that assess every berry and reject the unsuitable ones.

Some French appellations write sorting into their rules. In Châteauneuf-du-Pape grapes must be picked by hand, and quality sorting is compulsory, either in the vineyard or in the cellar. Rejected bunches are destroyed or made into "râpé", a wine without a geographical name that must account for at least 2 % of the declared volume. Grape sorting was among the requirements already set out here by an Avignon court ruling in 1929. In Gigondas sorting is compulsory whatever the harvesting method.

Does sorting always change the wine? Researchers at the University of California, Davis compared hand- and machine-harvested Pinot noir with and without optical sorting. Sorting largely erased the differences in wine composition linked to the harvesting method, yet tasters judged all the wines similar in character (2016).

Why it matters to you. When a winery mentions hand sorting, it means rotten and unripe fruit was removed before fermentation. For Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Gigondas this is not marketing but an obligation under the appellation rules. Sorting matters most in a wet year, when bunches are hit by grey rot or powdery mildew.