WINE How It's Made

The next time you enjoy a glass of wine, think about your place in history. Wine may date back to as far as 6000 BC, but now it's in bottles, not animal skins. But the basic principles of winemaking remain the same. Wine grapes grow best in temperate climates. But if grape vines are well protected, they can survive a severe winter. The riper the grapes, the sweeter the wine. So growers wait as long as possible before harvesting their crop. Pickers gather grapes by hand, cutting off the bunches with shears to avoid tearing the plant. Generally for red wine, winemakers use the entire red grape – juice, skin, pulp and even seeds. And generally for white wine, they use just the juice of white grapes. While the winemaking process itself is certainly a factor, the quality of the grapes is what will ultimately determine the quality of the wine. Grapes are affected by weather, soil conditions and by how the vines are pruned during and between seasons. The grapes go into the crusher, then into the presser, which squeezes out the juice. Inside the winery, the result of all that crushing and pressing ends up in large stainless steel tanks. The winemaker adds yeast to make the sugar in the grape juice ferment into alcohol. Winemakers constantly experiment with fermentation to try to improve the quality of their wine. They take samples of grape juice and mix them with different types of yeast. They hydrate the yeast with a bit of grape juice, then pour the mix into the grape juice sample, letting it ferment. The big fermentation tanks are refrigerated and monitoring the temperature is critical. White wine must be fermented for 3 weeks at 17°C, red wine for just 10 days at 30-35°C. Rose wine crosses the boundaries. It's made with red grapes, but fermented slowly, like white wine. There's an extra step in making red wine. During fermentation, the tank is drained to aerate the wine. The oxygen helps the yeast work faster over the short 10-day fermentation period. Then the wine is pumped back through the top of the tank to mix everything thoroughly. During fermentation, they not only monitor temperature, but also the sugar level. As the juice becomes wine, the sugar level drops and the alcohol level increases. Except for very sweet wines, fermentation is complete when the sugar is gone, and the alcohol content is 11-13% for red wine, 11-11.5% for white and rose. The wine is stored for a few months, then it's run through several pressure filters to remove any particles. Then comes time for bottling. Large wineries have fully automated bottling plants. Smaller operations, semi-automated systems like this one. The key in bottling wine is to avoid getting air inside, because oxygen turns wine sour. The coloured wine bottles protect the wine from light, which can also affect the taste. Cork has been used to plug wine bottles since ancient times, because it creates a tight seal. And as a type of tree bark, it grows back, so the tree isn't harmed. The wine continues to undergo subtle organic changes as it ages, making its final destination as enjoyable as possible.