The majority of us enjoy wine and adore the flavor, but many people still do not know precisely how to make wine. While virtually any fruit juice can be used to make wine, the substantial majority of wine is processed from grapes. The first phase in the winemaking procedure kicks off with the finest grapes harvest that is ready for picking. To speed up the harvest, several vineyards choose mechanical harvesting while some other vineyards still prefer picking the grapes needed by hand. The harvest is usually carried out at the early hours of the morning because the cool weather will not ruin the grape’s natural juices when picked.
Next is to crush the grapes. In recent times, grapes are no longer loaded into a big vat, and the winemaker(s) would softly tread on them to break the grapes’ skins in order for the juice to be released. Currently, this procedure is almost consistently done using a crusher machine. As regards white wines, once the crushing is done, the juice is split immediately from the skin pulp and stalks before fermentation commences. For instance, Champagne, which originates from black grapes, is simply made white by not allowing any contact between the grape skin and the juice. This answers the question of how white wine is made. In the process of making red wines, the juice remains in contact with the crushed pulp for a while to add color, body, and flavor to the juice to be fermented.
The separated pulp and the juice now pass through a series of processes to completely display that gorgeous wine taste. For the next step, i.e., production of wine by fermentation, there is an addition of yeast, which will turn to carbon dioxide and alcohol. These two properties must be present in all varieties of wine. This is what distinguishes them from beverages, including simple grape juice.
When carbon dioxide and alcohol have formed, the elongated aging process will now set in. Some vineyards make use of stainless steel barrels where their wines are stored for years before the wine becomes ready commercially use. For wine experts, they believe that oak barrels are best for wine aging because they have better quality and taste. This is the reason why the majority of vineyards in different places use oak barrels to age their wine. The aging process of these wine is properly monitored to achieve the desired quality. Monitoring is important because aging them for longer periods may result in the wine turning to vinegar. During the same period, sediments are removed by transferring the wine from one barrel to another to enable the wine to become as clear and pure as it can probably be. The wines are also filtered for the very same purpose.
Bottling the wines is the last step. The quality and other environmental factors are checked and controlled—for instance, the sealing mechanisms and temperature. The stainless caps and corks for sealing the wine are also checked. This is to avoid any contamination of any sort by other material.
The bottom line
Now you know before that lovely bottle of wine reaches your hands, there is a winemaking process step by step that vineyards observe to make sure that you get the same quality bottle that you expect every time. Despite the different wine varieties, they fundamentally follow the same winemaking process flowchart.
