Harvesting fruit and ensuring it
is in optimum condition.
2.
Fermenting the grapes into wine.
3.
Clarification and stabilising the
wine.
4.
Ageing.
1.
After harvest grapes are removed
from the bunch stem and gently pushed through rollers
to split the berries and release the juice.
2.
After the grapes have been through
the crusher/destemmer, the must - a combination of juice,
skins and seeds - is pumped to the press to separate the
juice from the skins.
.
3.
The juice is extracted at the press
and cooled while the skins, stems and seeds are discarded.
4.
The cold juice is allowed to settle
and then clear juice is decanted off the residue before
it is fermented. White wine is made by fermenting clarified
juice.
5.
Winemakers manage the fermentation
by controlling parameters such as temperature and the
pressing technique. Fermentation takes place in tanks,
usually large stainless steel tanks. Cold stabilisation
of a wine may also take place here. Tanks are fitted with
a cooling jacket through which coolant is pumped to export
heat from the ferment. Vats or barrels constructed from
oak can also be used to ferment wine. Chardonnay is sometimes
barrel fermented for part of the finished blend to add
greater dimension and complexity.
6.
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. After this the wine will be stable
and the winemaker can be reasonably confident the wine
will remain clear and bright after bottling.
7.
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.
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.
