The Process of Winemaking

Winemaking may seem like a relatively simple endeavor, but it is much more complicated than just harvesting, crushing, and fermenting. While winemakers agree that excellent wine begins with the fruit, the process and intricacies are as essential as the quality of the fruit in the vineyard.

The first step to winemaking is picking fresh and ripe grapes. Finding out when to pick the grapes is determined by many factors: the taste of the grape, consultant opinions, sugar and acid levels, and season. Some places have a climate too cold for the grapes to ripen naturally, so they are harvested before reaching full maturity. The flavor of the grapes depends on when they are picked — harvesting grapes too early makes wine with low alcohol content, and too late may produce wine with low acid and high alcohol content.

Many winemakers prefer to send out teams to harvest the grapes at night to avoid the heat of the day. Also, many vineyards are located in places with high temperatures, and nighttime allows the harvesters to pick them at stable sugar levels. The picking itself can be done by hand or with machines. While machines are faster, handpicking provides a more thorough way to sort and offer better quality control.

Next, the wine is destemmed with a de-stemmer machine. Then, depending on the type of wine, the wine is crushed or pressed. White wine is wholly pressed to separate the juice from the skin and seeds since that is all the winemaker will use to make it. But to make red wine, the skin has to be left on while being crushed in the press.

Nowadays, most of the crushing is done by a pressing machine or crusher. The process of trodding on the grapes with feet has been replaced with these machines to provide a more hygienic and efficient way of creating wine.

The resulting mush is then put into vats for fermentation. The formula for fermentation is yeast + alcohol = carbon dioxide and alcohol (ethanol). Many wine manufacturers also add additional ingredients at this juncture, including colors, preservatives, and sweeteners. Mush for red wine and rosé has to contain skin from the grapes as it ferments. But while rosé ferments for only a few hours with the skin, red wine mush will stay in contact with skins for one to two weeks, fermenting at 70–85 degrees. On the other hand, white wine juice ferments at a lower temperature (45–60 degrees) for many weeks.

After the wine has matured, the winemaker can clarify it. It’s a ‘purification’ method that eliminates any undesired elements which give the wine any unwanted characteristics. To do this, winemakers use a binding agent, causing the particles to bind together and make them big enough to filter efficiently.

When the wine is ready, the winemaker can choose to bottle it right away or age it. There are various methods for aging wine; some prefer to do it in a barrel, others in a steel container or glass. Wherever the winemaker chooses to age their wine, they must do it in a nonoxidative environment (where there’s no oxygen). Aging wine gives its flavor more intensity.