What does it take to make a glass of apple juice?

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Fallen fruit, bruised and scarred, hasn’t been on offer at major supermarkets for years. Thomas Kern / swissinfo.ch

Heinz Wuffli gets started at 6am. He grates the apples and pears, wraps their pulp in towels and stacks it between boards for pressing. Thomas Kern / swissinfo.ch

The juice passes through the coarse cloth and flows into a catch basin just beneath the press. The yield is almost 80%. A single pressing brings about 50-60 litres of juice. Thomas Kern / swissinfo.ch

If kept cool, the fresh juice from the press keeps for a few days. But most of it is preserved through pasteurisation. Thomas Kern / swissinfo.ch

The freshly pressed juice is cloudy. Depending on the variety of apples and the number of pears in the mix, it has a golden yellow colour. Thomas Kern / swissinfo.ch

When you peel the pressed fruit pulp from the cloth, it looks like a little doormat. The pomace is stored in casks and used for animal feed (left). The blue measuring cup contains a protein solution that Wuffli mixes into the freshly pressed juice. Thomas Kern / swissinfo.ch

The juice is stirred and mixed well. This reduces the number of fine fruit particles that make it cloudy. After several hours, the juice is clear and can be pasteurised and bottled. Thomas Kern / swissinfo.ch

Christa Wuffli has built up the operation with her husband over many years. She inspects the quality of the latest fruit delivery (left). The juice is stored in a glass bottle housed in a wooden case. Thomas Kern / swissinfo.ch

“The best part of my job is when I can watch the clarified juice being drawn out of the vat through a hose,” says Wuffli. Thomas Kern / swissinfo.ch

Lunch at the Wufflis: The freshly squeezed juice from this morning is already on the table. Thomas Kern / swissinfo.ch

Some of the pomace is sealed in barrels and sent to farmers in the area. The Wufflis also use it to feed their sheep. Thomas Kern / swissinfo.ch

The clarified juice flows through a hose and into a vat. Thomas Kern / swissinfo.ch

For some time, the newly qualified farmer Fredi has been helping to pasteurise and package the juice. The equipment has been in use for only about three years. With its valves and electronic controls, Wuffli isn’t too wild about it. Thomas Kern / swissinfo.ch

Some of the juice still goes into old-fashioned glass bottles with a porcelain cap. Thomas Kern / swissinfo.ch

Before bottling, the apple juice is pasteurised at about 80 °C. Eric and Fredi help Heinz Wuffli with this task. Thomas Kern / swissinfo.ch

The pre-heated bottles are filled at 81 °C and rinsed off with hot water. Thomas Kern / swissinfo.ch

Heinz Wuffli in his mill with its lift, grating machine and indestructible hydraulic press. At right, a detail of the more modern filling machine. Thomas Kern / swissinfo.ch

The cloudy residue at the bottom is poured into smaller barrels and fermented. Wuffli will use it to make schnapps. Thomas Kern / swissinfo.ch

An old glass bottle with a cork holds freshly-pressed juice (left). At right, 20-litre plastic bags with built-in taps. Thomas Kern / swissinfo.ch

This year there is less fruit than usual. Thomas Kern / swissinfo.ch

Two fruit trees behind Wuffli’s farm on the outskirts of Winterthur. Thomas Kern / swissinfo.ch

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Dawn has just broken, and Heinz Wuffli works fast. He’s been making fruit juice for years, and he could do every step in his sleep. His mill is in a backyard in Winterthur-Seen, where the early morning air is cool and the light is sparse.

Making juice isn’t Wuffli’s only mainstay. He also distils schnapps and is one of the few Swiss distillers who drives from house to house to help farmers process theirs. In winter he works in the forest cutting wood, often for the city of Winterthur.

This year’s hot and dry summer was hard on the orchards, where a lot of fruit fell because of the lack of nutrients and fluids. Also, the abundant harvest last year contributed to this season’s poor yield – as good years are always followed by rather meagre ones.

So Christa and Heinz WuffliExternal link are expecting to produce considerably less juice this year. Above all, there’ll be fewer small-scale producers who deliver their fruit to be processed into apple or pear juice.

But the taste won’t suffer: Different varieties of pears and apples are pressed together, so every week there’s another flavour – sometimes sweet, sometimes sour.

Images and text: Thomas Kern / swissinfo.ch