Making Wine

How do grapes become wine?

I didn't give much thought to that until a few years ago when my husband and I decided to make wine at home. I wish I could say we picked and stomped the grapes ourselves and went through the process like knowledgeable wine makers.

...Instead we bought the juice that came to us in a jumbo size plastic bag and crammed into our tiny apartment kitchen following the directions given to us in our wine-making packet.

Here is the gist of it (starting from the vineyard):

The best grape is one that is grown in good sunlight, in good soil, and with good drainage. These grapes make for the best wine! Once the grapes are ripe on the vine they are picked (by hand or machine) and the bad grapes are sorted out.

Grapes are stemmed and crushed (using a grape crusher, although there are people that still use their feet!). White wines are pressed so their skins are removed. The grape juice is strained into a tank, usually stainless steel (we just poured ours from a bag into a very large bucket).

Yeast is added to the tanks (or bucket). Yeast turns the sugars in the grape juice to alcohol and carbon dioxide is released. This can last a couple days to a week or so. Ours was done in a few days.

After fermentation, red wines are pressed so the skins are removed. Red and white wines usually transfer over to another vessel (usually a barrel) to mature (sometimes called secondary fermentation). Our wine went into a five gallon glass carboy. At this point air is the enemy. Any contact with oxygen can ruin the wine. After three months or so wine can be transferred to another vessel to continue the aging process. This usually helps rid of sediment that has gathered on the bottom of the vessel. Wine can mature from six months to three years. We let ours sit in our apartment for four months (maybe a little less).

NOTE: Wines that mature in stainless steel usually have more fruit forward flavors, while barrel matured wines have more earth, oak, and caramel flavors.

Wine is usually filtered before bottling. We siphoned our wine into extremely clean bottles we had kept. We corked the bottle with a corking device and let the bottles hang out for a few more months.

My husband and I have made wine three times. A Chardonnay, Shiraz, and bold Italian Borolo.

Found on the Khooll