Winemaking Step by Step

<v ->Wine making, step by step</v> and I’ll be talking about White Wines. The very first step we go for just like for every other wine will be Harvesting. That means we will go out and literally just take off all the clusters of our grapes and just get them down to the winery. Step number two is called Destemming that means we are simply separating the stem from the actual fruit or the grape. The next step is known as Pressing, now pay attention when we press, we are removing the skin from the grape juice and as far as white wines are concerned, unless you are making orange wine you have to press your juice before you take it to fermentation.

So now that we’ve pressed our Must, we are left with the juice and now the juice can actually go to the fermentation process and during the fermentation is when we’re actually creating the alcohol. The step that follows is called Racking, Racking means we will be transfering the wine from one tank to the other one simply to get rid of the bigger impurities or the bigger sediments, yeah the bigger elements of dirt if you like. The next step is known as Malolactic Fermentation also known as the second fermentation where a malic acid becomes a lactic acid. You might wanna take a Granny Smith apple as an example you taste it, it’s quite acidic right?

And then try a yoghurt a yoghurt also stays acidic but it doesn’t heat your mouth as much it is going to be more subtle it’s going to feel a little bit less strong for that moment so Malolactic Fermentation means converting the malic acid into the lactic acid. The next step would be Aging now pay attention, this is important wine makers ,depending on what kind of wine they are looking for, that is what they will actually use to decide on their aging method they’ll use a steal tank if they would like to go for a wine that’s perhaps lighter but if they wanna go with the wine that’s perhaps a little bit fuller, a little bit more intense, they will go for a log barrel.

The next step will be Fining, Fining is when we add certain agents in order to further purify the wine. The next step is called Tartaric Stabilization, Tartaric Stabilization is simply lowering the temperature of the whole vessel until we’re actually given some crystals and those crystals will be able to be separated from the wine in order to just add more purity to our wine.

Here comes Blending as the following step pay attention because blending is very important when you’re choosing your wine, make sure you are aware of the blend as well it could either be just be a single grape or what we also know as a blend we call it “assemblage” in french terms its a very popular term when it comes to wines and wine making.

The next step is Filtration during Filtration, we let the wine go through a filter so we actually got rid of the very last impurities of the wine so now we have a very smooth wine. The next step is called Bottling and Corking for wine makers also known as the type of closure type of closure we’re actually talking about the cork so when it comes to the cork, you could have a regular coke, you could have a plastic cork, you could have a glass cork, just keep in mind that the type of cork already gives you a very good idea of the taste of your wine think of a glass cork that will be a very good example of a lighter wine .

Last but not least, Maturation and Storage keep in mind that when it comes to maturation or aging your wine if you like there are some white wines that are best consumed when they are very young perhaps just two or three years yes they can definitely go up to a few decades but vintages are not necessarily a factor for the quality of your wine so keep in mind that some white wines are best consumed when they are young.

Okay, when it comes to producing red wines, you need to understand that we’re actually looking at exactly the same steps as White Wine but there’s one big difference in the production process and that is the skin contact with the grape juice during fermentation and the actual skin contacts in the grape juice that step is actually called Maceration depending on how long you’re going to keep your skin with your grape juice, the deeper the colour of your wine will be once your wine has fermented then you’re going to press and as we said before when you press you’re removing the skin .

Another extremely important step for difference of White wines is actual aging process of Red wines as you might know the Red wines tend to be a little bit more suitable for aging especially when we’re looking at blends when it comes to aging choosing the barrel is a very very important step for the wine makers there different qualities of wine barrels sometimes the wine barrels are used modern ones sometimes wine makers even buy different used barrels and that is where they actually put their blends or their single grape wines keep in mind that some Red wines are enjoyable when they’re young but they’re also very suitable for aging and as you know they can go easily into aging up to 30 years, 40, 50 and more.

Last but not least am sure you are aware of wines that we call Rose try not to call them Rose wines or try not to call them pink wines you should be using the right terminology just say the word Rose. You might think that blending is a popular way of making Rose Wine but let me tell you it is really not it is actually forbidden in most wine making regions around the world and blending as you know means we would just mix in a way White Wine and Red Wine it is practised but very rarely and like I said it is not allowed in most of wine making regions in the world the most common technique to make Rose Wine would be Limited Skin Maceration think of a wine maker trying to make Red wine as I’ve explained before Maceration is the process of keeping contact between grape juice and the grape skin now for that grape juice to actually become red to actually become Red Wine it takes at least three days so anything before those three days you’re actually making Rose that period before those three days when your wine is red that wine actually stays pink and now think of a period between six and 48 hours where you can stop the Maceration and start pressing if you stop at six hours you’re going to have a very light kind of pink if you stop at 48 hours you’re gong to have a much heavier kind of pink but essentially that is the most common way of making Rose Wines.

Another method to make Rose Wines is known as Saignee Saignee means bleeding so it’s also known as bleeding method think of a wine maker trying to make regular Red wine so now in the vessel you have grape juice and you have grape skin you’re making Red Wine, right? And you’re just going to let go a bit of juice go a bit of that Must go the Must is actually Rose you’re still within the six and 48 hours of Maceration but you’re just removing some of that and wine makers actually do that to intensify the flavor of the Red Wines so now you have a byproduct and that byproduct will be your Rose Wine.