How To Make Wine
So – you have decided that you want to attempt the age old art of making wine. The following tips will walk you through some basics – good and bad – to ensure your first batch won’t leave you disillusioned and deflated from possibly creating a bad batch.
The ultimate starting question is how much do you want to make?
I suggest a minimum of at least 5 gallons. Why? Because beginners in home wine making can’t wait to taste the fruits of their new found art. Five gallons equates to only 25 bottles. You’ll get the batch finished and you will be itching to try a bottle or 2. Then you’ll wait a week and try a few more bottles. Before you know it the wine will be finished before it has had the opportunity to age and mellow sufficiently.
With 5 gallons – you just might be tempted to let a few of the remaining bottles age. Believe it or not, the biggest mistake beginners make is not letting their wine age in the bottle. The difference in taste is absolutely amazing and so tantalising to the palate.
The next step is to determine which type of juice you want to ferment. Grape juice, cranberry juice, muscadine, and cherry are all good choices to begin with. Grape, cranberry and muscadine all produce a normal tasting wine while cherries usually create a sweeter wine. Of course, you can always add sugar to sweeten your wine after it is stabilized and has stopped fermenting.
Once your base ingredient is selected the next stage is to sterilize all of the containers and equipment you will be using. This can be done by using extremely hot water or using a sanitiser. I prefer the sanitiser method as it avoids the risk of scalding yourself with the hot water. The sanitising solution should be poured over everything and should make contact with all surfaces. This being done the equipment is then simply rinsed off with hot water.
Next you put your juice in your 5 gallon bucket. However, at this point it’s not time to introduce the yeast.
We first want to sterilize our “must” or our juice. You do this with 4 Campden tablets. These are sulphite tablets that will get rid of any type of bacteria that could be present in the juice. Crush the tablets and dissolve them in some warm water. Pour them into the juice and let this sit overnight while the sulphites do their cleansing work.
24 hours later, you are ready to sprinkle in or “pitch” your yeast.
The type of yeast you decide to use is beyond the scope of this article. There are many, many different yeast strains for many, many different uses. In starting out we can just use the baker’s yeast which is readily available at the supermarket. Later, and after some research, you may want to use one of the more specialised strains.
Science now plays it part and you wait for 7 days and watch. You will want to cover your bucket with a cloth towel or similar. The wine will be perfectly safe during the fermentation period as it gives off lots of carbon dioxide. The Co2 will protect your wine from the oxygen in the air.
Once the 7 days has lapsed, siphon the wine from the bucket into another bucket or into a glass “carboy”. These can be found online or at your local wineshop. Whilst you are siphoning avoid picking up the sediment on the bottom of the bucket. This gunk is called “lees” and is made up of dead yeast. The wine sitting on top of the dead yeast can sometimes develop an “off” flavour.
Once the wine has been transferred into what is called your “secondary fermenter”, then you will want to put an airlock in place and just let it sit for about a month. There’s a song about this part – “The Waiting is the Hardest Part”. It’s true. Every budding home winemaker just cannot wait to taste the stuff – but – don’t do it. It surely won’t hurt you but during this month it is still fermenting. The wine isn’t finished yet. Be Patient.
After a month has passed, you will want to transfer it back to your bucket, again making sure that you leave the gunk on the bottom. This process of transferring the wine from one vessel to another is called “racking”.
Now we are getting close. There is only one thing left to do and that is to add a “stabiliser” to the wine. A stabilizer inhibits yeast reproduction. In essence, it stops yeast from doing its thing. Part of what happens during yeast growth and reproduction is that it releases Co2 gas. If this is still happening after the wine is bottled you will have popped corks and exploding bottles. To avoid this happening we add a stabiliser and stir the wine well. The wine is then returned to the secondary carboy fermentation vessel. Be thorough in cleaning the secondary carboy and be certain that it was sterilised earlier.
At this point all you have to do is wait until the wine clears. Gravity is your friend here. Of course, it won’t hurt at all to bottle cloudy wine. But if you wait another month, it should be crystal clear. The clearing process is another subject that you can find a great deal of information on in other guides and books and I suggest you read up on this subject when you get a chance.
The magic is now done – it’s bottling time! All you have to do is again make sure your bottles are clean and sanitised and just siphon the wine into the bottles. Corking the bottles can be a little difficult and I highly recommend you get a corker of some description. Again, these are available online or at your local wine shop.
Now – BE PATIENT and let the wine sit in the bottle for 6 to 9 months. The longer the wine ages, the better it will taste – I guarantee it.
That’s it – you’ve done it. This is how to make wine. Happy winemaking!