Ah, yes, the joys of wood. We use wood in the winery for barrels and barrel-alternatives of course but, especially for the small-scale winemaker, wooden presses are still often part of our crush equipment. It’s interesting, but not strange, that this mold pops up periodically. I would scrutinize your ambient humidity and temperature; it’s very possible this mold bloom was caused by a change in the weather or a change in your cellar environment. Once, while working out of a winery in Santa Cruz, California, we noticed that we tended to grow mold on the outside of our wooden upright tanks when we experienced a period of particularly wet, damp, and muggy weather. When the sun came out and it warmed up for good, we cleaned and dried the tanks well (installing a couple of big fans blowing outside air into the tank room) and the white mold didn’t come back until the following fall. At another winery on California’s Central Coast, I used to have a small wooden press and we occasionally experienced the same problem you describe above:
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