How wine is made

Lets just imagine we are able to produce our own wine, where do we start? Firstly, of course we need a vine, that is to be found with many other vines in a vine yard. There are many different vines to chose from, every one giving a different flavour of grape. We will start with the green Veltliner, this is, of course a white wine grape.
The previous autumn, we have picked our grapes, after the grapes have been collected, the vine yard must be prepared for the next season. The ground must be turned over and the vines cut back in the winter. In the spring and summer the vines will have the new shoots they have sprung tied up to stakes in the vine yard. Flowers that appeared grow into small grapes. From the end of august until the middle of october the grapes are collected. They are taken away in big lorries.

The picked grapes are then put in huge presses, they are pressed and all the juice is collected and stored in barrels. When the juice is stored in stainless steel barrels, it has a fruity, fresh taste. Stored in wooden barrels the wine develops a stronger mustier flavour, normally red wine is stored this way, it lends itself better to this stronger flavour. Yeast is added to the grape juice, which helps the juice to ferment.

When the new wine is too sour, it’s natural sugar content is increased by the addition of crystal sugar. In this early process, the wine is cloudy and very sweet, it has only a low alcohol content, as more sugar needs to convert to alcohol. Next the cloudy wine juice is filtered, the barrels are washed and the new wine is put back into the clean barrels. The wine is now regularly tested that the sour and sugar content are just right for that particular wine. Only when the wine producer is satisfied, is the wine put in wine bottles and stored in a dark cellar, for later drinking or selling.

Red wine is handled differently to white wine at the pressing process, the grapes for red wine aren’t pressed so hard, so that a mash of grapes and juice are left. The red wine gets it’s colour from the skins of the grapes that are left in the juice. After a while the juice and grapes are pressed again and the juice is now seperated from the grapes, as in the first instance with white wine.

This is a very simplified version of what the wine grower does to ensure a good wine. A good wine grower has his own method to ensure his wine is to his liking. The addition of sugar is to be found by the better expensive wines.

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