WINE & TEQUILA | 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 their temperature is critical. White wine must be fermented for three weeks at 17°C. Red wine for just 10 days at 30-35°C. Rosé 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's gone, and the alcohol content is 11-13% for red wine, 11-11.5% for white and rosé. 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 origins of tequila can be traced back many centuries. Mexico's Aztecs fermented the juice of the agave plant to produce a low-alcohol drink called pulque. When the Spanish conquistadors arrived, they added distillation to the process for a much stronger drink. And tequila was born. Pass the salt and lime. Tequila is to Mexico as champagne is to France. Tequila is only made in this part of the world, and Mexico has claimed exclusive rights to the word tequila. For centuries, workers called jimadores have grown and harvested the agave plant for tequila. It takes seven years on average for a species called Weber blue agave to mature. Even today, it's harvested entirely by hand, using a razor-sharp hoe-like tool. The jimadores chop away the greenery until all that's left is a huge core called the pina. Filing the round blade frequently keeps it sharp, allowing them to remove most of the bitter-tasting leaves from the pina. The tequila distilled from this crop will be a premium grade, made from 100% agave juice. The jimadores routinely remove a small piece and measure the starch content of the crop. Only if it's deemed to be sufficient is the agave pina sent to the distillery. Workers wield special hatchets to carve the huge pinas into quarters, to make them more manageable for baking. They transfer the chopped pina to a brick oven, where it's steam-baked for 79 hours. This thorough cooking converts the agave starch to sugar. In the process, the flesh softens and the colour turns from white to reddish-brown. The baked agave pina now spills onto a shredder that rotates to tear the fruit into long, thin fibres. These fibres exit onto a conveyor. The shredded pina lands in a pit, where a worker forks it up and moves it into the path of a huge stone wheel called a tahona. Operated mechanically, the tahona wheel turns to crush the fibres and squeeze out the precious agave nectar. It takes two hours of crushing to extract all the juices. They pipe the juicy mash into wooden tanks and add yeast. The yeast causes fermentation, a process where sugar is transformed into alcohol. After 72 hours of fermentation, the alcohol content reaches 5%. The fermented pulp and juices have an earthy, acidic bouquet, and the aroma fills the air. They transfer the fermented mash to small copper stills. Inside the stills, the alcohol is boiled off and the vapour condensed into a more potent liquid. This is called distillation. After two distillation cycles, they have tequila. A technician measures the alcohol content, and it's 55%. After straining out the pulp, they transfer the tequila to steel tanks. They add purified well water to dilute the alcohol content and bring it down to 40%. The tequila is now ready to drink, so it's over to the bottling line. With the bottles upside down on a revolving carousel, they spray the inside with tequila for a quick rinse. The grippers flip them right side up, so they can be filled. This automated system maintains a precise filling level. An employee corks the bottles and then sends them down the line. The next worker presses adhesive-backed transparent labels onto them. The see-through labels showcase the clarity of this fresh, premium tequila. For a drink with a little more complexity, they age the tequila in oak casks for two months or more, depending on the grade. During aging, the tequila takes on a woody flavour and turns a warm shade of amber. The master distiller personally approves every batch. He checks the colour, inhales the aroma and puts his observations down on paper. He also takes a little sip. No longer just a rough swig for banditos, tequila has gone upmarket and is a key ingredient in many popular cocktails.