That is a great question and I’m really glad you asked. Sometimes when those of us who have been making wines for quite some time write about some technique, process, or concept that we may think of as “simple,” we need to rethink for a moment that how we describe something might not be so obvious to everyone. I think your instincts are pointing you in the right direction. During an active fermentation the cap (the grape skins that float to the top of the vessel) can get very hot and so the cap’s temperature is definitely not indicative of the temperature of the entire must/fermentation. I’m not aware of any specific article that points to “how to measure the temperature of a fermentation” but I’ll pass on to you what I know from how I was trained over many harvests and how I still conduct temperature measurements today. Like you say, the cap is always a local temperature and during the peak of fermentation, when we want to make sure we’re getting a red fermentation warm enough to extract
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