Tuesday, November 11, 2008

More Basics

Start with the best grapes or a quality juice or juice concentrate.
You can make wine out of just about anything-A wine I like to make is out of Ginger Root.  A great wine winter and summer.
How about a Lavender Wine,  end of Harvest Wine (various vegetables) or an Herb Wine?

Start with your basic grape wines and then venture out from there.
You can google making wine and get a lot of hits for wine making tips...

How we make Wine

  1. 180 pounds of grapes go into the grape crusher and are forced into 55-gallon barrels
  2. The crushed grapes rest in barrels for about two weeks.  The longer the hull is left in the barrel, the darker the wine will be.
  3. Everything from the barrel next goes into a grape press.  Pumped water forces a bladder in the press to expand and release on the juice.
  4. The grape juice is put back in barrels.  The more full-bodies the wine, the less water is added.  Wines are made sweet, semi-sweet or dry according to how much sugar is added here.  Yeast is added to help the fermentation process.
  5. After sitting in barrels for a varying period of time, the wine goes to the bottle machine where a stabilizer is added to stop the fermentation.
  6. After the wine is in the bottle, the bottle is corked, shrink-wrapped, labeled and sent out the door.
Terrie Harrell explains how Bennett Vineyards makes their wine without disclosing family secrets.