How to make red wine?

Harvest: The grapes are picked when they are ripe. This is determined by taste and sugar.

Stemmer/Crusher Machine: This machine removes the stems and pips from the bunches and crushes the grapes so that they are exposed to the yeast for fermenting and the skins can give the wine a better colour.



Fermentation
: Yeast turns the sugar in the wine mostly into carbon dioxide, heat and alcohol.


Maceration: This is a period when the berries are allowed to crush naturally and the must (juice and solids) pick up flavour, tannin and colour. Left too long the wine can taste bitter, too short and it is thin.


Pumping Over: Skin and other solids float to the top and need to be pushed back down to the bottom to stay in contact with the must. This can be done with a tool or you can pump the must from the bottom over the cap.

End of Maceration: The wine maker must now decide if the must has sat long enough or leave it for longer.

Remove Free Run
: The best quality wine is made from the free-run juice portion of the must. It is removed and the rest (now called pomace) is sent to the press.

Press: This squeezes the remaining juice out of the pomace. This can be tricky because if you press too much or too hard you can affect the quality of the wine.

Settle: The juice which is now wine needs to settle.

Racking: Moving the wine from one barrel to another allows you to leave solids and anything else that might cloud the wine behind.

Malo-Lactic Fermentation: This is a secondary fermentation that turns the tart malic acid (as found in green apples) into softer lactic acid (as found in milk). Not all red wines go through this step.

Oak Aging: Oak is expensive so depending on the wine’s quality it may only be in oak barrels for a short time or not at all.

Fining: A process that is used to remove anything that can make a wine appear cloudy.

Filtering: A process that helps to remove any fining agents or other solids left in the wine.

Bottling: This is done carefully so that the wine does not come into contact with air. Fine wines can be stored for several years in a bottle before being opened.


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