HOW TO MAKE WINE Let your wine age for at least a month, allowing both the flavour and aroma to deepen further
Rustle up your own house merlot or pinot grigio, and discover the gadgets to help you savour it
We’ve been making wine for thousands of years. Well, not us personally, but humankind. And it isn’t as complicated as you might think. A bit messy, perhaps, but not difficult if you plan your wine-making experience properly and gather up all the supplies you need before you start.
On that note, there are specific tools you’ll need to arm yourself with before you crush a single grape. The first of these is a two-gallon crock pot or glass jar fitted with a lid that enables air flow to enter and escape the wine mix, but without providing an open home to opportunistic bugs.
You’ll also need a one-gallon carboy (essentially a glass container with slender neck), an airlock, some thin plastic tubing for siphoning wine, a thermometer and a hydrometer, plus wine bottles with corks or screw caps (roughly five bottles to every gallon of wine). Oh, and Campden tablets, which are used to sanitise wine ‘must’. Also stock up on a sanitising agent, like Cleaner Steriliser (from £1.65, lovebrewing.co.uk).
Although wine can be made from pretty much any fruit, grapes are still the most popular choice. Where possible, choose organic grapes, as you don’t want any added chemicals seeping into your wine. You could head to your local farmer’s market to buy wine grapes. If there isn’t one near your home town, purchase grapes from a specialist online retailer, such as the Wine Grape Club ( winegrapeclub.co.uk) or Vinatis ( vinatis.co.uk).
There are definite pros to buying from a specialist wine grape retailer. Namely, you can drill down into specific grape varieties – think Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Grigio and Muscat – and better predict the end flavour of the wine you want to make.
KEEP IT CLEAN
It’s important to sterilise any equipment that may come into contact with your wine before you use it, taking care to thoroughly rinse off the sanitising solution (in line with the instructions) with warm water after leaving it on for the allotted time, which is usually anywhere from five to 30 minutes.
Also wash your grapes, removing any dirt, stems and leaves. Once the grapes are washed clean, place them into the crock pot for crushing. Either use a potato masher to crush them to release the juice, or do it the old-fashioned way by crushing grapes with your hands. Keep adding and crushing new
grapes until the crock pot is almost full of juice; top up the juice with filtered (never tap) water if needed.
Grapes are naturally covered in wild yeast and bacteria, but if you allow these to remain in your mix, they can produce a foul-tasting wine. The best way to get rid of them is by dropping a Campden tablet into the juice, which releases sulphur dioxide to kill off anything we don’t want.
Now is also the time to add in honey or sugar (white or brown, according to the type of wine you’re making), which feeds the yeast and sweetens the wine, in amounts according to the recipe you’re following. Grab your sachet of yeast – there are many yeast varieties available for different wines (try Gervin, £1.30, homebrewcentre.co.uk)
– and stir it into the mixture. At this stage, we can now call your mixture wine ‘must’.
Let your wine ferment by placing the crock pot in a warm area with a temperature of around 21°C overnight. If you think you’ll struggle to maintain this temperature, look into purchasing a brew belt, heat tray or immersion heater. Why is temperature so important? Too cool and the yeast won’t grow. Too warm and the yeast will die.
Patience is a virtue
After letting your wine ferment overnight, uncover and stir it, before recovering. Repeat this process every few hours for the first day, then a few times a day for the next three to four days. Once the bubbling (caused by the yeast in action) stops, fermentation is over and you can strain out the solids, before siphoning wine into your carboy. Once the wine is in there, affix the airlock to enable gas to escape without allowing oxygen in.
It’s important to let your wine age for at least a full month. Nine months is best for full-bodied reds, with white wines coming out best at around six months.
Once you’ve waited as long as you can, add another Campden tablet to your wine to prevent it from being infected with bacteria, then pour it into sterilised bottles. Fill them pretty much to the top, then cork or seal.
The only thing left to do is host a dinner party so that you can show off your sweet wine-making skills to your buddies.