Sweetness of wine Czech Republic and Slovakia, the Normalizovaný Moštoměr (°NM) scale is used. The scale measures kg of sugar in 100 l of must. ČSN and STN 257621 – 1.3.1987 In France, the Baumé scale is occasionally used. Sélection de Grains Nobles (SGN) is French for "selection of noble berries" and refers to wines made from grapes affected by noble rot. SGN wines are sweet dessert wines with rich, concentrated flavours. Alsace wines were the first to be described as "Sélection de Grains Nobles", with the legal definition introduced in 1984. The term is also used in some other wine regions of
History of the wine press Terentius Varro, Pliny the Elder and others described wooden wine presses that utilized large beams, capstans and windlasses to exert pressure on the pomace. The wines produced by these presses were usually darker, with more color extracted from the skins but could also be more harsh with bitter tannins also extracted. That style of wine press would eventually evolve into the basket press used in the Middle Ages by wine estates of the nobility and Catholic Church leading to the modern tank batch and continuous presses used in wineries today. The exact origins of winemaking (and, thus, of pressing grapes)