Winemaking Demystified

I've recently gotten into making my own wine.  There are several ways of doing this; my preferred method is with wine kits.  It's easy, it's cost-effective (you get 30 bottles from one kit, which can cost anywhere from $50-$100), and the better kits can produce some damned decent wines. 

In a kit, you get grape juice of the correct varietal for the wine you're making, plus things like yeast, fining agents, clay and whatever other funky chemicals need to be added.  Depending on the wine you're making, you may also get oak chips, elderflowers or a sweetening additive.

I'm going to go over the process in case anyone's actually interested, just because I've added a blurb in my sidebar about what wines I have going and where they're at, and because winemaking's pretty esoteric, you all most likely won't know what the hell I'm talking about if I don't explain.  I'm leaving out a lot of the particulars, but this way you'll at least have the gist, hopefully without my boring the living shit out of you, and if you want to learn more you can check out the site for the brand of kits that I usually use.  If nothing else, the process for making commercial wine is more or less the same on a larger scale (although a lot of commercial wineries have their own grapes that they process into juice before any of this happens), so it's still kind of interesting to know.

First is primary fermentation.  This is where you put your juice in a big bucket, toss some yeast in it, and cover the whole thing.  It sits like that for about 5 days, bubbling away.

After that you have to move it to a carboy, which is like those big bottles on top of water coolers.  That's called secondary fermentation, and that lasts about 10 days.

Then you have stabilising and clearing.  This is where you add stuff to your wine to make it stop fermenting and to separate out the sediment so it's all bright and shiny.  Stabilising and clearing is my least favorite step, because it involves stirring the living shit out of your wine to get out all the gas bubbles so that it's not fizzy.  Wine that's not supposed to be fizzy, but is, sucks in the extreme.  I have a big-ass long spoon that attaches to an electric drill that I use to stir my wine, and I still have to beat the holy crap out of it for a good 15-30 minutes every time.  And even after that, depending on how warm it is in the house (the warmer it is, the more easily the gas escapes), I sometimes STILL have fizz.

After you've done this you wait 8 days and then you move the wine to a different carboy.  This is called racking and clarification.  Basically, it gets the wine off all the sediment that's fallen to the bottom of the carboy it was in before.  Sometimes you do this more than once.  The wine sits for two weeks after each racking.

After that, it's ready to bottle.  You can either bottle it, or you can leave it in the carboy for awhile and it can age there.  The advantage to this is that it takes up less space and you're not tempted to drink the wine while it's still too new, but the disadvantage is that you now have a carboy tied up that could be getting used to make more wine.  I've had a Luna Rossa (a very, very nice red Italian table wine) sitting in a carboy for a few months now, which I'll be bottling around January probably.

Once you've bottled it, depending on the wine, you probably want to let it age for awhile.  Bolder reds are best after a few years, lighter ones a year to 18 months, whites 6 months to a year.  Mileage may vary depending on your willpower and the conditions they're aging under.

So there you have it.  Winemaking is basically a lot of waiting.  And a lot of sanitizing, since everything the wine touches has to be extremely clean.  And a lot of waiting.  And a lot of hard lifting.  Carboys are heavy, slippery sonsofbitches when they're full.

But you know what?  It's worth it.  Bet I have more wine on hand than you do!

Comments

[KathyHowe]

You make it, I'll drink it. Sound like a good plan to you? ;)

[Carmi]

I've always wanted to give winemaking a try, but never managed to find the time. This entry has inspired me to throw down the gauntlet and make it happen. There's a store near my house, so when things quiet down at work, I'll be paying them a visit.

[Moogie]

Oh wow..alot of steps in there. Sounds like a lot of work. How did you get interested in wine making? Michele sent me today, but I'm glad I came! Have a wonderful evening!