The Art of Winemaking
My family and I have been producing various types of wine for over nine years, making it one of our longest standing traditions. We started in 2002 with plums from our own back yard. By 2005 we were making apple wine, also from our own trees. In 2006 my dad decided we should go to a vineyard, which we have continued to go to for the last five years. Over all, we have produced about eight different types of wine, as well as one year of apple champagne. And over all of these years I have learned just how many steps go into the process of making an outstanding wine. Every step is important to the final product, but the three most key components are the quality of the grape, using the right yeast, and timing.
The fruit most commonly used for wine, and my father’s personal favorite, is the grape. Grapes contain a complex combination of acids, sugars, and other chemicals. This balance is affected by the quality of the soil, the weather, the specific type of grape and how well suited it is to the climate, and many other factors besides. In the Willamette Valley the climate is cool and wet, so some of the more commonly grown grape varieties, Pinot Noir and Cabernet, tend to grow better in Oregon. However, wait too late in the season and the wet causes mold to grow on the grape vines and in between the grapes, which can ruin an entire harvest. It mostly depends on how well the grapes grow, lending to the production of a fruitful return. However, grapes are too sweet to make a wine on their own, so the sugar must be removed and replaced with alcohol in order for it to become wine, and to do that, you will need yeast.
The yeast involved in the winemaking process is just as important as the type and quality of the grape. It takes all the sugars in the grape juice and ferments them into ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide. Grape juice can often be a perfect environment for any number of bacteria, wild yeast, and mold to grow in, so cleanliness when adding the yeast is very important. Also, yeast is by and large often thought of as a single thing when in reality there are many different types of yeast that can be used to make wine. Montrachet, Pasteur Red, and Bordeaux, are just three types of yeast commonly used in red wine alone, and there are dozens of other types also used to make wine. But choosing the correct yeast is only a small factor. Knowing when to add that special yeast is everything.
Timing is the key to the entire process of winemaking. You must know first when the best time to go and get the grapes is, while they are at their finest. Then you must decide how long to allow the crushed grapes to sit with their peels if you want red wine, or to immediately separate them for a white wine. Once you only have grape juice it is necessary to wait for a specific number of days before making a culture with yeast and then a precise number of hours before pouring the culture into the grape juice. And this is all before you even start to use a press. The newly pressed grape juice is poured into airtight carboys for less than three days before it all must be taken out again to have all of the juice siphoned off from the sediment, which inevitably ends up at the bottom. This siphoning should be done at least three more times throughout the year to remove as much of the sediment as possible before the bottling, which should happen approximately ten to eleven months after first picking the grapes. If bottled too early, the wine will not have fermented sufficiently, while bottling too late may result in a sourer wine than you might have wanted.
Of course there are any number of variables that will affect how the wine will turn out, or even if it will make it to bottling without getting spoiled. But generally, if you keep these key ideas in mind, the wine might just come out right Not every batch will turn out the way that it was planned. Sometimes the containers aren’t airtight enough and allow mold in. Other times, the carboys just break because they were mishandled or dropped and a third of the entire vintage soaks into the garage floor. There are so many little things that could massively alter the original plan that it is impossible to account for them all. However, if the major things are done right, you are far more likely to end up with a desirable product. You may lose a carboy to mold, bacteria, or breakage, but I challenge anyone to make any wine at all when they forgot the fruit.