Elaboration of wine

Human beings learned how to make wine thousands of years ago and, since then, the process has become more sophisticated and improved, producing high-quality wines and improving grape strains to obtain the best musts. Wine has evolved alongside man and its production as well.

Wine is one of the oldest alcoholic beverages known to man, its manufacture dates back to the Stone Age and it involves natural fermentation, from the metabolic action of yeasts, musts or grape juices. Natural yeasts transform the sugar present in the grape into ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide gas. 

The grape, due to its high concentration of sugar, does not need artificial alcohols added for its fermentation, so the entire wine process takes place naturally.

It is for this reason that winemaking can be affected by a whole series of environmental factors such as the climate, the latitude of the vineyards and the cellars, the hours of daylight during the grape harvest, the temperature at which it is stored or the altitude at which the vines are located.

The winemaking process

The grape is the basic component of the winemaking process. The producers put a lot of care into the production and maturation process to obtain the best possible red wine (here you will find some options to choose from). This process consists of several stages, starting with the harvest, which takes place between August and October, which is the time when the grapes are harvested. The vine then goes into a state of dormancy that lasts all winter, to sprout again in spring, bear fruit, mature and be ready for harvest again.

The ripening process comes to an end when the grape has the correct sugar concentration, which is measured in degrees Brix. This is a very important point when talking about how wine is made, since the musts must ferment naturally, so it is essential that the grapes contain enough sugar to obtain the desired alcohol levels.

How the harvest is done

The harvest is carried out in two different ways, the first of which is manual harvesting, which is done at night or early in the morning, and in which the grape harvesters choose the bunches that have reached the optimum degree of ripeness, while eliminating leaves. Usually, they are left in 15-kilo plastic boxes or bins to be transported to the warehouses.

The second way of harvesting, mechanical, accelerates the fermentation of the wine, since the metal pieces break some grape grains and accelerate the oxidation of the must. In addition, this type of harvest does not select the best bunches and mixes leaves, both green and dry, stalks (the grape stems) and vine shoots (vine shoots), all these components of the wine make it of poorer quality.

In both cases, to finish the wine process, the grapes are first destemmed and pressed to obtain the must, which, together with the skins, passes to some vats where the wine fermentation process will begin, which will be cared for by the workers of the cellar, breaking the “boina” (the concentration of skins and skins that forms a crust in the upper part) and taking care of the temperature. During this time, the grape also macerates with the skins and skins, thus obtaining its red color.

After being in the vat, the wine goes through a racking process in which everything that is not wine is removed, that is: skins, skins, seeds, scraps, earth and any colloidal substance. After this process, the wine becomes more stable and passes to a new phase of fermentation at low temperature. At the end of this, it goes through pressing and cleaning with sulphites, to enter a final fermentation process called malolactic, which is what gives it its organoleptic properties, since at this moment the malic acids are converted into lactic acids.

Finally, the wine is clarified and stabilized. At this point, if the wine is destined for ageing, it is deposited in white oak barrels, where it will spend a period of time according to the desired ageing. If what you are looking for is a young wine or “of the year”, it will go directly to the bottle.

The process of making white and sparkling wine

In the case of how to make white wine, the process would be very similar, although with the difference that green or white grapes are used, instead of red. These grapes have a higher concentration of sugars and the fermentation process is only carried out once and always at a low and controlled temperature, so the result is fruitier wines with less alcohol concentration.

Sparkling wines are made following a method called Champenoise, which starts with the production of a base white wine, usually from Chardonnay or Pinot Noir grapes, which goes through a second fermentation process inside the bottle, so that the yeasts themselves, fermenting wine, they create carbon dioxide gas, which will turn white wine into sparkling wine or cava. In the case of cava, at the end of the fermentation process, sugars are added to obtain the Brut, Natur, Semi-dry… classifications.

Now that we know how wine is made, it’s easy to understand how complicated it can be to learn how to make homemade wine. To learn how to make wine at home would take a lot of time and also have the right tools, like steel barrels for fermentation or barrels with temperature controls, for cold fermentation.