Harvesting fruit and ensuring it
is in optimum condition.
2.
Fermenting the grapes into wine.
3.
Clarification and stabilising the
wine.
4.
Ageing.
1.
Red wine grapes have colourless juice.
The red colour is in the grape skins and winemakers leave
the juice in contact with the skins for a time to extract
the colour.
2.
After harvest grapes are removed
from the bunch stem and gently pushed through rollers
to split the berries and release the juice.
3.
After the grapes have been through
the crusher/destemmer the must, a combination of juice,
skins and seeds is fermented for several days. Winemakers
manage the fermentation by controlling parameters such
as temperature and the pressing technique. Fermentation
takes place in tanks, usually large stainless steel tanks.
4.
The fermented must is then pumped
to the press to separate the juice from the skins.
5.
Winemakers clarify wine by fining,
racking and filtration. Wine is stabilized by removing
excessive protein and potassium hydrogen tartrate. These
materials must be removed to prevent them from precipitating
out of the wine later.
6.
The wine is then aged. Red wine can
then spend anything from a few weeks to a few years in
either stainless steel or oak where it is racked and fined
several times prior to bottling. As the wine ages it develops
"bouquet". Wine acids react with alcohols to
produce volatile esters and during bulk storage oxidation
slowly changes many wine ingredients. After the wine is
bottled, oxygen is no longer available, and a different
type of ageing begins to take place. Some premium red
wines can spend several additional years in bottle before
being released.
Sparkling Wine Making Process
Sparkling wine can be made is several different
ways from the age old method of Méthode Champenoise to the
newer techniques used today.
