Wine Making 101

Lizzy Freed  

“The sun, with all of those planets revolving around it and dependent on it can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.”
   -Galileo Galilei

Wine, like many of life’s mysteries, reaches a level of complexity deep enough to overwhelm even the greatest minds. It’s a drink and a culture in its own right, rather than merely a “good time beverage”. Once its process and multi-faceted purpose are understood, its true beauty becomes visible.

The winemaking process reflects the profundity of wine because it is so involved. There are entire books written about each individual facet of the process. This is the reason wine can get so expensive; it’s true you can get a decent bottle of wine without draining your bank account, but anyone who wants anything really special should think of it as an investment and not an expense.

The reason that wine can get so pricey is because truly exceptional bottles take time and attention, while those that are flat and replaceable do not. Though I would love to say that price doesn’t reflect quality, in many circumstances it does. It is more expensive to create a more complex product.

In order to understand the life behind a fine wine, let’s first take a look at how it’s made. This will be a very brief explanation, because as I said before, each step in the process can get complicated. However, I feel that it’s important to have a basic understanding in order to make educated assumptions about wine and to give it deserved appreciation.

The first step is to procure the grapes. Some wineries have their own established vineyards where they grow their own grapes, while others order their product from non-estate growers. The growing process is very complex, and is something that will take another column to expand upon.

Next, the rest of the supplies (yeast, crushers, presses, tanks and barrels to name a few) must be bought and prepped. This can include cleaning, sterilizing, and general organization.

The grapes then need to be pulverized, which is generally done in a crusher. Then the mash of grapes is moved to either oak or steel barrels where the fermentation process takes place.

Though most grapes will contain some natural yeast (there are even some traditional wineries that use only these), generally specific yeast strains are added to the juice to accelerate the fermentation process. This step is really where nature takes over. Because I’m a visual learner, I like to imagine the yeast eating the sugar and leaving alcohol behind. Obviously it’s a lot more complicated than this, but we’re not getting into a chemistry lesson here.

In order to make a red wine, the grape skins are left to ferment with the flesh. In whites, the juice is strained from the skins after crushing. The majority of grape varietals, including most reds, have clear juice. The red color in wine comes mainly from the skin, which contains most of a grape’s pigmentation. Generally speaking, white wines are produced from grapes that have both light skin and light juice, but it’s possible to create a white wine from a seemingly red grape, such as Pinot Noir.

After fermentation, the wine can be bottled where they age further, or moved to barrels. If you have ever seen a bottle of wine that says that it’s a “reserve,” it means that during this stage, the wine was moved into barrels, generally oak, giving the wine time to develop a more complex personality; each barrel of the same wine will taste different in the end because of its unique aging.

So the next time you’re cruising the wine aisle picking out the next nightcap, think back about the work that was expended to put that bottle on the shelf. Imagine the grapes growing, and the stress they feel during a heat wave. Think about who put the time and care into picking the grapes. Think about the precise moment the winemaker tasted his reserve and decided it was ready for bottling. Because a bottle of wine isn’t just a drink: it’s an experience.

More information available in Sheridan Warrick’s The Way to Make Wine.