When it comes down to making wine, common knowledge plays a big part in the process. If you combine the basic elements of wine making with your innate instinct and taste, the result should, surely, be a positive one.
Crushing & Pressing Generally speaking, 50 pounds of grapes yields five gallons of wine. Once you harvest your grapes, you must place them in a plastic vat (found at any wine-making shop) for crushing. Always make sure to fill your vat only 2/3 so as not to waste any of the smashed grape mixture. Foot grape crushing methods have proved to be effective and easy to employ. For smaller amounts of grapes, you can crush them with a potato smasher, or simply your hands. Once the must (name given to grapes after they are smashed) is done, you must add potassium metabisulfite in order to prevent the growth of unwanted yeasts that can affect the taste of your wine. This chemical can be purchased in Campden tablets, and the recommended dose is to be added to the must. The mixture is then covered with a cloth and left to sit for a day.
Fermentation After the mixture has rested for a day, its time to add 1 packet of wine yeast (not to be confused with bread yeast). The most common types of wine fermenting yeasts are Montrachet and Prix de Mousse. To stir in the yeast, use your hands so as to elevate the temperature of the must and activate the yeast. Using your fingers, comb through the mixture and remove the stems, crushing any fruits that were left attached to them. Cover with a cloth, and let it sit again. Within 48 hours, the must should begin to fizz and it will look like its boiling by the third day of fermentation. When a week passes, the fizzing will stop and the wine will be ready to be filtered of seeds, pulp and any leftover grape skin.
Within a week the fizzing will subside and it is time to separate the wine from the leftover seeds, grape skins, and pulp. The mixture can be poured into mesh bags or cheese clothes. It then needs to be squeezed, strained and poured into a glass carboy, also available at winemaking shops, or poured into an empty wine barrel. From this moment on the wine should no longer come into contact with the air. An airlock can be used with a carboy or a barrel. An airlock prevents air from getting into the container but allows gas to escape.
Racking At this stage, it will only take 2-3 weeks for the fizzing to stop. Once the fizzing stops, its time to rack the wine. Racking will remove what is called the lees from the wine. Lees is the used up yeast and grape pieces that remain, unconsumed, at the bottom of the barrel of carboy. A common way of doing this, is siphoning the wine out of the container to clean the bottom. Once the bottom of the lees has been removed, the wine is to be poured back into the container. A second racking will be required 2-3 months after the first, with a third and final racking 3-4 months after that.
The wine can then be aged in a pitch-black dark, cool place until its ready to be drank. Even though the wine can be tasted at this point, the longer you leave it to age, the fuller the flavor will be.
Pierre Duponte is a grape growing expert. He spends his time teaching others how to make fine wines. For more great tips on easy wine making or you can get his free 10 part mini course on grape growing and how to make wine visit http://www.grapegrowingwinemakingtips.com/.
Grape growing has been in the history books since the early development of farming practices. The techniques that are used today to manage and maintain a grapevine, have been perfected over centuries of trial and error. Like in any plant-growing process, weeding, pruning and pest control are required regularly to maintain a healthy vine, and to tame your plant to grow at a certain pace, and in the right directions. This process can take a few years, since the vine wont be fully mature until the third year of growth when it gives fruit. However, this enables the grape grower to tame the plant effectively for the very first harvest, and to obtain a top quality wine making grape in the very first picking.
Pruning is simply getting the plant growth to encourage more growth
Pruning is the action of clipping back shoots and cutting excess foliage to control the plants growth and to ensure that no energy is being spent feeding dry or unnecessary plant sections. Grapevines are trained to maintain a consistent plant shape, size and productivity; a process that takes about the time it takes to grow your first harvest.
How to Prune: The Standard Pruning Method
After the trellis is set up and the grapevine is planted, vines will be permitted to grow from one main shoot that is tied vertically to the trellis. Any other shoots must be clipped back to prevent their growth. After the following dormant period, you must establish what will be the arms of the grapevine where your fruit will grow on. To do this, you tie two of the shoots that emerge from main shoot, horizontally onto the trellis. Make sure to trim back all other shoots to prevent their growth. After this step, the grapevine will begin to take shape on its own, with a pruning during the dormant season to help the plant. Pruning during dormant seasons is crucial to the harvest of healthy and flavorful grapes.
Benefits of Pruning
An important aspect of pruning is that this process will rid your grapevines of old canes and spuds that no longer produce fruit. Grapevines canes are only productive during their first year of growth, making it absolutely necessary to generate canes every growing season to lock-in a future harvest. Pruning will also aid in plant size management, since the grapevine will adapt to the size and productivity that you establish when you prune.
Pruning will rid your grapevines of fruiting canes or spurs from prior years that are now not productive. Vines’ canes only produce fruit during the first year of growth, so new, healthy canes must be grown constantly to secure your next harvest
Tool for Pruning
Hand tools like loppers, hand pruners, and handsaws are typically used to prune grapevines. The goal for the grapevine owner is to avoid unnecessary injury to the plant. Most likely, when removing shoots that are one-year-old, hand pruners can be used effectively. On the other hand, larger wood should be cut with either the lopper or a handsaw.
The desire to grow grapes results in the necessary steps of getting down into the dirt and getting dirty. Pruning is a relatively simple concept in which grapevine growers seem to grasp quickly. The time and dedication over the years results in a healthy and plentiful crop
Pierre Duponte is a wine making enthusiast. He spends his time teaching others how to make fine wines. For more great tips on pruning grapes or you can get his free mini course on grape growing and how to make wine visit http://www.grapegrowingwinemakingtips.com/.
by Travis Parker
To know what Sherry wine is you have to understand what a fortified wine is. To transform a regular wine into a fortified wine grape spirits or Brandy is added to the fermenting juice to stop sugars at a certain point from converting to alcohol. Sherry is one of those wines where grape spirits is added to stop this process. After the Sherry achieves its proper alcohol levels it is tested for quality and separated into two types of Sherry: Fino and Oloroso. Each of these types of Sherry have further classifications.
Three grapes provide the background for all types of Sherry wine: Palomino grapes, Pedro Ximenez and Moscatel. The Palomino grape is the backbone for every Sherry. It provides the overall quality of the Sherry. Pedro Ximenez is a sweet grape variety used as a sweetening agent. And Moscatel, or Muscat d’Alexandria provides the light amber colors of Sherry. Once the grapes have fermented to the right levels the juice is tasted and separated according to its quality into two groups. The best of the wine is made into Fino Sherry. Everything else is made into Oloroso Sherry.
Fino Sherry being the best of the Sherry wines is made entirely from the Palomino grape. Yeasts in the fermentation process give the wine its flavors and aromas. It is allowed a supervised exposure to oxygen to encourage aging and as it is a long process Fino Sherry is the smoothest and least acidic Sherry available. Its taste reminds you of roasted almonds.
An almost subcategory of Fino Sherry is Manzanilla Sherry. The S. Beticus yeast, native to the Sanlcar de Barrameda region, imparts a salty nuttiness due to its proximity to the ocean air. Manzanillas are given open exposure to the air in order to achieve proper maturation. This exposure ranges from short periods to moderate time in the sun and imparts a light to medium gold color.
Amontillado is the last category of Fino Sherry. It moves even further away from being a Fino as it reaches maturity. It’s full open air exposure darkens it to an almost dark brown and because of its exposure to the sun it develops a rich maderized flavor of roasted hazelnut. Amontillados are sweetened with the juice of sundried Palomino grapes called vino dulce or by adding pure sugar called dolce de albimar.
Free-run juice is separated from the pressed juice to make Finos, the pressed juice is used for Oloroso production. These are still terrific Sherries all in themselves and should not be seen as inferior.
The direct exposure to the open air and sun speeds the process of maturing in Oloroso Sherries. As a result of this exposed aging the Oloroso tends to be a little more abrasive than its smooth Fino cousin. Darker colors, deeper aromas and a fuller body are what characteristics define a good Oloroso. The flavors are intense toasted pecan.
One of the rarest types of Sherry avaibale is the Palo-Cortado. It has the aroma of an Amontillado without any of the yeast contact associated with Amontillado. And it tastes like and has the appearance of an Oloroso. Somewhere between the Fino and Oloroso styles, the volatile physiology of Palo-Cortado causes it to quickly degenerate into a full-blown Oloroso.
