Watch wine made from grapes at home. Proper preparation of wine at home

Have you ever tried natural homemade wine made from grapes? If yes, then you certainly know what an amazing taste and aroma this drink has. For a long time, special attention was paid to the preparation of wine, each ingredient was carefully selected and pressed. We'll tell you how to join this art.

1

Making natural wine at home is a huge responsibility. And the first step towards creating a drink is choosing the grape variety that will be used to create the intoxicating drink. Today, a huge number of varieties are known, each of which has its own individual taste and properties. Not all of them are suitable for the recipe of a particular drink. Because of this, not only beginners, but also experienced growers can get confused when choosing suitable fruits. Therefore, anyone who is planning to prepare wine at home should be familiar with the properties of different grape varieties.

Grape variety Aligota

White grape varieties are very popular. Among them, special attention should be paid to Aligota - greenish-yellow berries strewn with small black dots. This grape has a hard skin and very tender sweet pulp. Inside each berry there are 1-2 small seeds. Aligote is an early ripening grape; it is not resistant to frost, which is why it is grown exclusively in the southern regions of our country. The main area of ​​use of this variety is the production of mono-blend dry wine, that is, a drink from the fruits of an exclusive one type.

White Chardonnay grapes

Another white grape variety that even beginners know about is Chardonnay. The berries of this type have a very sweet taste, although they are used mainly for the production of vintage dry and champagne wines. Chardonnay ripens in September-October, its fruits are small in size with a yellowish-white tint and soft skin.

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2

Another popular red grape variety is Cabernet Sauvignon, which is in demand due to its original herbaceous-nightshade taste and delicate aroma. The pulp of these fruits is spreadable, making it very difficult to separate it from the elastic peel. Cabernet Sauvignon berries are fully ripened in mid to late November. This grape variety is used to create the best red and fortified wines.

Suitable variety for winemaking: Pinot Noir

The third red grape variety that is popular among winemakers is Pinot Noir. These berries have a very dark color with a lilac tinge. Pinot Noir fruits have firm, elastic skin and solid, very sweet flesh. Pinot Noir berries begin to ripen in mid-September and can be harvested at the end of the month. The fruits of this variety are widely used to create high-quality table wines and are sometimes used for fortified drinks.

In addition to the varieties we have listed, we can also mention black grapes. Such fruits have large fruits and a dark shade. As for the gastronomic qualities of these berries, unfortunately, the pulp of black grapes is not endowed with an expressive taste. Therefore, black grapes are practically not used in winemaking.

4

Once you've harvested your grapes, it's time to get ready to make homemade wine. The result you get directly depends on how you prepare the berries.

The first thing to remember is that the grapes that you have collected and are preparing to create a drink should never be washed. This is due to the fact that there is a large accumulation of wine yeast on the surface of the skin. Most beginners are very puzzled by this, because along with the yeast there is dust on the skin. But don’t worry in vain - all the dust will settle, and the juice of the berries will be completely cleared during the fermentation process.

The second important factor is that the grapes used for winemaking must be completely dry. Every recipe for making a homemade intoxicated drink requires this. If the fruits are wet, this will negatively affect the taste of homemade wine - the drink will be too sour with an unpleasant yeasty smell.

Bunches of white and red grapes

After harvesting the fruits, they need to be cleaned, that is, the berries must be separated from the ridges. It is worth being vigilant - for cooking you need to select only whole and elastic berries. The remaining fruits that have already begun to rot can be thrown away without hesitation - they will only worsen the aroma and taste of homemade wine. After selecting the berries, they will need to be brought to the state of pulp - a homogeneous mass of crushed grapes. Turning grapes into a homogeneous mass is quite simple - you can even use a regular coffee grinder for this. Place small portions of selected grapes in a coffee grinder and grind them until smooth. You can make it easier and mash the grapes with your own hands so that you can squeeze the juice out of each berry.

Grinding grapes

If you like to make wine and you plan to continue preparing natural drinks at home, then we advise you to buy a special grape crusher. At a low cost, the manual mechanism is very easy to use and will help you properly prepare the fruit for further use.

5

Today you can find more than one recipe for making homemade wine. All known methods differ from each other solely in their ingredients. However, the creation algorithm is always the same. Let's take a closer look at it and find out how to get an amazing drink at home. The taste and aroma of wine is influenced by several factors:

• strict adherence to temperature conditions during each stage;
• patience - there is no need to rush to prepare the drink;
• strict adherence to the recipe;
• the ability to check the drink from time to time;
• the presence of a cool, ventilated room in which you can maintain the same temperature.

So, creating homemade wine according to a classic recipe involves three stages. The first of them should be started immediately after preparing the pulp. The resulting mass must be poured into a large vessel. This could be an enamel pan, a wooden barrel or another clean container. It must be filled to 2/3 of the total volume, no more. Next, the vessel is covered with cotton cloth, which will also need to be securely fastened around the entire circumference of the neck of the pan.

Grape pulp in an enamel container

Next, fermentation of the pulp begins. Optimal conditions for this are from 18 to 24 ˚C. It must be remembered that as the temperature rises, at best, the quality of the wine will suffer greatly. In the worst case, the process of vinegar fermentation will begin and all your mash will quickly turn into vinegar. We strongly do not recommend lowering the temperature in the room: if it drops below 18˚C, the fermentation of the pulp will slow down greatly or will not begin at all.

Another important nuance regarding temperature: if you made the pulp outside and then brought it indoors, then you do not need to immediately cover it and send it to ferment. Allow the mixture to warm to room temperature. Only then you need to cover the container with it and take it to a cool place. The best option is to prepare the pulp and pour it into a container in the kitchen or other household space.

Grape fermentation process

Provided you follow the temperature regime, fermentation of the mixture will begin within a day after you covered and moved the container. At this stage, active separation of the wort begins, and the pulp, due to the release of carbon dioxide, quickly rises to the surface of the mixture. You are required to mix these two components 5-6 times a day, otherwise the pulp may become acidic and completely ruin the future grape wine.

6

After 4–5 days of infusing the pulp, it was time to separate it from the wort. To do this, you need to pass it through a colander, and then squeeze it out again using unbleached gauze. Pour the resulting wort into a large glass vessel, filling only ¾ of the volume of the latter, and tightly close the lid with a straw. The straw is a mandatory element in the lid of the container. It protects the wort from souring. One end of it should be dipped in wine, and the other in a jar of water.

At this stage of creating wine from grapes, we can adjust the strength of our future drink. Strength directly depends on the amount of sugar and fructose in the fruit. Most grape varieties grown in our country do not contain more than 20% fructose, so you will have to add more sugar to compensate. Otherwise, you will only get sour, dry and tasteless wine.

Adding sugar to wort

According to the classic recipe, you need to add sugar at the rate of 200 g per 1 liter of wort. To do this, you will have to pour out some juice, heat the poured part and dilute sugar in it. Pour the resulting mixture back into the glass container and close it again with a lid and a straw.

The wort, diluted with sugar, ferments at home for about 1 month at a temperature of 18–22˚C. During this, the yeast settles to the bottom of the vessel, the wort becomes lighter and denser. At the same time, the release of carbon dioxide stops.

Fermentation of grape must

After 25–30 days, open the vessel and strain the wort. After this, you can taste it. If you are preparing dry wine according to the recipe, then you don’t have to add sugar. But if you are a fan of sweet or semi-sweet drinks, then it is better to add more sugar and mix the wort thoroughly. After this, pour the drink into dark glass containers and seal. The main thing is not to close the bottles too tightly, otherwise the remaining carbon dioxide will not be able to leak out.

7

There are many different opinions about this stage. Some craftsmen argue that this step in the classic recipe is not at all necessary. Others, on the contrary, believe that it is necessary to sterilize the unripe drink.

The opinion of the former is based on the fact that the resulting wort should ripen in natural conditions and there is no need to interfere with the drink. It is best to place a water seal on each bottle and take them to the basement or other dark room. It will take at least 3 months for grape wine to fully ripen. During this period, the drink must be strained several times to remove the resulting sediment.

Grape wine fermentation

The second winemakers are ardent supporters of the need to sterilize containers with wine and further ripen the drink in hermetically sealed dark bottles. How to perform sterilization according to the classic recipe? First, the wine must be poured into bottles and loosely closed with lids. Next, you need to wrap the containers with cloth and place them in a tank of water. The liquid should not be higher than the hangers of wine bottles. Then a thermometer is placed in one of the filled bottles, and the tank with containers is heated until the temperature of the grape wine rises to 62˚C.

Immediately after this, the bottles of wine must be tightly corked and left in the room to cool. After this, you can take the sterilized wine to the basement. As a result, we get an excellent homemade drink, which has a velvety soft taste and a sweet aftertaste. After everything we have done, you can start tasting wine, or you can postpone it for a while. After all, the older the wine, the better it is.

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Anyone can make delicious grape wine at home. To create it, no special devices are needed: the distillation apparatus is assembled from improvised means. The sweetness and strength of alcohol is determined by the ingredients used. For example, a good taste is obtained by combining Isabella with other varieties. Step-by-step recipes with photo and video tips presented below will help you understand the features of preparing a flavorful drink. It can be prepared with the addition of water and sugar, without yeast.

How to make wine from grapes at home, a simple step-by-step recipe

Experienced winemakers use virtually no yeast or water. Self-fermentation of the grapes ensures a natural taste. Add water only if the grapes are too acidic. In other situations, the recipe for grape wine at home includes only berries. The absence of additives makes it refined and has a pleasant aftertaste. How to make wine from grapes at home, without using additional ingredients, is described in the following instructions.

Ingredients for making wine at home using a simple recipe

• grapes - 10 kg;
• sugar - 100-150 gr. for 1 l.

Step-by-step recipe for simple wine preparation at home

1. The clusters are cleared of large branches (leave the green ones, it is better to remove the dry ones), transfer them to a small saucepan and pound with a mortar. You cannot wash the grapes beforehand: this will remove the wine yeasts released from their surface.

   

2. The pulp (crushed grapes) is transferred to an enamel bowl. The top is covered with gauze. This will eliminate the appearance of fruit flies. It shakes itself a couple of times a day. The composition is left for 4-5 days at a temperature of 18-23 degrees.

   

3. Afterwards the cake is separated. To do this, put gauze on a colander and put the pulp on top.
   

   

4. The squeezed juice is poured into jars (2/3 full) and tightly closed with lids. Holes are prepared in them and a flexible tube is connected. Its free end is immersed in a small jar of water. This will help remove gases and prevent direct contact of the liquid with air.

   

5. When fermentation ceases to be active, sugar is added. The need for filling is checked by tasting: it needs to be added if the sweetness and strength of the alcohol is insufficient. When the formation of bubbles stops, pouring and capping should begin.

Amazing dry wine from grapes at home - a simple recipe with photos

Making dry wine from grapes at home is not difficult. Its advantages are ease of preparation: the use of additives in this case is not required. Making wine from grapes at home can be done using any variety with a slight sweetness. Then the resulting drink will have a slight sourness.

Ingredients for making dry wine at home using a simple recipe

• grapes - 10 kg.

Step-by-step recipe for making dry homemade wine

1. Bad and green grapes, leaves are removed. The sorted grapes are manually pounded with a mortar. In an enamel container it lasts for about 1 day (temperature - 20-25 degrees).
2. The remains are separated from the wort: the composition is filtered several times and poured into bottles with a narrow neck. A hose is connected to the lids and lowered into a jar of clean water.
3. At the end of fermentation, the liquid is poured into containers. It is important to carry out the procedure carefully without touching the sediment. It is better to store containers in a dark place. If sediment forms, additional filtering is allowed.

Wine from grapes at home - recipe without yeast, video

Natural wine should contain a minimum of additives. But also during its production it is necessary to take into account special requirements for collection and processing. Therefore, beginners are recommended to make homemade wine from grapes using a step-by-step recipe. Following the rules outlined in the video tutorial will help you avoid common mistakes.

The instructions provided provide an example of using Isabella. But it can be replaced with other berries. For example, Bianca is a white grape that is one of the best varieties. It has an original taste, but is quite expensive, and caring for the plants themselves is not easy. Therefore, you can make homemade wine from grapes with the addition of water and sugar and with cheaper, familiar varieties - sultana, valentina or bazhena.

Delicious wine from Isabella grapes at home without yeast - a simple recipe with photos

The use of Isabella as a base is fully justified by the ease of its cultivation and collection in large quantities. True, some winemakers believe that it is almost impossible to make delicious wine from Isabella grapes at home. Achieving a rich and pleasant taste with this variety is easy when using additional components. A simple recipe will help you prepare exquisite wine from grapes at home.

Ingredients for homemade wine from Isabella according to a simple recipe without yeast with water and sugar

• grapes - 5 kg;
• water - 12 l (boiled only);
• sugar - 3 kg.

Step-by-step recipe for homemade wine from Isabella without yeast with the addition of water and sugar

1. Prepare the bunches for processing. Grind the grapes, add sugar and leave for a week.
2. Dilute the infused pulp with water and leave for 1 month under gauze. The resulting “cap” must be constantly removed.
3. At the end of the month-long fermentation, the mixture should be strained and bottled. It is important to remember that sediment getting into the purified liquid will lead to its rapid deterioration.

Homemade grape wine with added water and sugar, recipe with photo

The use of auxiliary ingredients allows you to obtain a strong and very sweet wine. Such drinks made from white grapes are combined with cheeses, desserts, chocolate or other confectionery products. Alcohol made from red grapes is usually served with meat dishes (poultry, pork or beef).

Ingredients for making sweet wine at home

• red grapes - 5 kg;
• water - 30% of the mass of the resulting pulp;
• sugar - 40 g per 1 liter.

Recipe for making sweet homemade wine with added water and sugar

1. Remove damaged grapes and leaves. Press grapes for wine at home using a mortar.
2. Place the grape “porridge” in an enamel pan and mix with additives. Cover with gauze and stir after 3-4 days. In the future, the foam “cap” that appears should be removed. After another 12-24 hours, strain the pulp.
3. Add water to the prepared composition (40% of the total mass). Pour it into bottles, cover with a medical glove, and make a puncture in it to release gases. When the glove comes down, you need to take a little liquid, heat it and dissolve sugar in it (200 g for each liter), pour the mixture into a bottle.
4. When the liquid stops fermenting, you need to wait for the sediment to peel off and keep the mixture for a month. Next, use a straw to pour it into bottles and seal.

White grape wine at home with the addition of water - a delicious recipe

A distinctive feature of this light, transparent wine is its delicate, refined taste. It is light and goes well with simple snacks: cheese, sliced ​​vegetables. Ideally complements salads and fish. You can make wine from white grapes at home from any variety. Regardless of the sweetness, the drink will have a pleasant aftertaste. During 1 year of storage, it is recommended to carry out additional straining of the liquid. This will help achieve a transparent color and protect against the appearance of bacteria.

Ingredients for a delicious recipe for making homemade grape wine without yeast

• grapes - 20 kg.

Step-by-step recipe for making wine from grapes at home

1. Prepare the bunches: remove leaves, damaged or rotten grapes.
2. Crush the berries. It is better to carry out the work manually: using squeezes and grinding seeds can lead to bitterness.
3. The juice is decanted from the prepared grapes: the pulp is placed in cheesecloth and wiped well. Subsequently, it settles for about 12-24 hours to settle unnecessary particles.
4. After settling, the juice without impurities is expressed using a tube. The sediment must not be raised! It is poured, closed with a tongue or similar plug with the possibility of connecting a thin hose.
5. During fermentation, the temperature should be maintained at about 15-25 degrees. After reducing the volume of juice in glass bottles, it is topped up: due to contact with air, harmful bacteria can form in it.
6. Straining and pouring occurs only at the end of fermentation, when bubbles stop forming and the carbonated taste completely disappears.

Natural wine from grapes at home, as can be seen from the step-by-step photos and video recipes, can be prepared even by a novice winemaker. Compliance with these rules, careful grinding and straining will allow you to get a truly original drink. Using exclusively grapes as a base, it is not difficult to obtain a light, dry wine. By adding water and sugar, it is not difficult to prepare a semi-sweet drink. You can make wine from grape juice at home without using yeast at any time of the year. For example, for early varieties, preparations are made in the summer. And Isabella is prepared even in the fall: it withstands frost and can be harvested with the onset of cold weather. But the most important thing is that such a wine product will be of high quality, excellent aroma, and will not contain dangerous impurities.

This is an art that takes years to master, but anyone can try to create homemade wine. Of course, in this case you won’t be able to get “Oxford Landing” or “Baralo”, but it is quite possible to prepare a drink with a taste superior to many store-bought wines.

We invite you to familiarize yourself with step-by-step instructions for making white and red wines from grapes at home. In all recipes, the main ingredients are only sugar and berries, but in some cases you will also need clean drinking water.

How to make homemade wine from grapes?

First you need to choose the right grapes. Not all varieties of this berry are suitable for creating a tasty and pleasant drink. Pay attention to these varieties:

These types of grapes have the necessary sugar content and do not require special care. You can also use the Lydia and Isabella varieties, but they are quite sour. Sugar can correct this situation; it will need to be used in larger quantities than when working with sweet grapes.

Before you start preparing wine, thoroughly clean all tools and containers that will be used in the process. The drink is susceptible to infection by various pathogenic bacteria, which can cause mold to appear. Therefore, in order not to spoil the product, all utensils must be kept perfectly clean and dry. Barrels and bottles should be washed well with boiled water and wiped dry. Professional winemakers and industrial wine production plants smoke vessels with sulfur, you can also use this technique.

Never use containers containing dairy products.. Even thorough cleansing rarely helps to completely get rid of milk plaque, but this is one of the most favorable environments for the development of pathogenic microorganisms.

Basic products you will need to make homemade wine:

Dilute grape juice with water only in the most extreme cases, as it can spoil the taste of the final product. It is used to reduce the acidity of juice from very sour berries, which makes the cheekbones cramp and the mouth tingle. But keep in mind - sugar can also cope with this problem, so it is better to try to do without water.

Before you start making homemade wine, you should collect and prepare the harvest. Grapes ideal for fermentation must be ripe. Unripe fruits are too sour, and overripe ones begin to ferment already on the branches and can thereby spoil the juice prepared for making wine. Berries should be picked in dry and clear weather, it’s good if there is no precipitation for two or three days before picking.

Homemade wine recipe

So that your homemade grape wine ferments exactly, and not sour, it should be completely protected from oxygen. But at the same time, carbon dioxide formed as a result of fermentation must be able to escape from the containers. For this, a water seal is used. To make such a device, follow the diagram in the figure. You can also do it much simpler. Many farmers and summer residents who have been making homemade wine for a long time use ordinary medical gloves instead of a water seal. They are put on the bottles, secured well, and a small puncture is made with a needle in one of the fingers of the glove.

After installing the glove or seal, place the containers in a place with suitable air temperature. If you are making white wine, you will need 16-22 degrees, for red you need 22-28 degrees. The temperature should never fall below fifteen degrees, otherwise the wine will stop fermenting.

Adding sugar

To obtain one percent alcohol in the finished wine, two percent sugar is required in the berry preparation. Grapes grown in Russia are rarely sugary and contain up to twenty percent sugar, or even less. That is, it turns out that if you do not add additional sugar to the wort, the resulting wine will have a maximum of ten percent strength and a sour taste.

The main problem is that at home there is no way to determine the sugar content of grapes. In production, this is done using special devices - hydrometers. Looking for such information in descriptions of varieties is also a useless undertaking, since there cannot be one specific indicator. The sugar content depends not only on the type of grape, but also on the area of ​​growth, weather, and care. Therefore, summer resident winemakers just have to try the preparation and focus on the taste; the juice should be sweetish, but not cloying like syrup.

The sugar content in the product should not exceed fifteen to twenty percent. Higher rates will ruin the fermentation process. Therefore, sugar should be added gradually. Check the taste of the juice every two days. When it becomes sour, it means that the previous portion of sugar has already been processed and it’s time to add a new one. For every liter of juice there are fifty grams of sugar. Pour one or two liters of the mixture into a separate vessel, add sugar and stir well. Pour the resulting syrup back into the container.

Typically this procedure needs to be repeated three to four times in the first two to three weeks of wort fermentation. At a certain point, you will notice that the sugar content of the juice begins to decrease more slowly. This means that the required amount of sugar has already been added.

Homemade wine requires approximately one to two months of fermentation. The period directly depends on:

• Activity of natural yeast.
• Temperatures.
• Sugar content.

If you notice that after fifty days the fermentation does not seem to stop, then pour the wine into another clean container, having first filtered it. This will help avoid bitterness and an unpleasant yeasty taste.

Removing homemade wine from the remainder

When the wine stops fermenting and becomes clearer, and the sediment sinks to the bottom, the resulting product should be poured into a new vessel. The end of fermentation is quite easy to determine - if you used a water seal to remove carbon dioxide, it will stop producing bubbles. And if you wear a glove, it will deflate.

The container should be changed to get rid of sediment - dead fungi accumulate in it. They cause a bitter taste and unpleasant odor. To do this, place the vessel with wine on a stool; it should be fifty to sixty centimeters above the floor. After one or two days, use a transparent hose to pour the wine into another container. The end of the hose should not come into contact with the sediment to prevent it from being sucked in. Keep the hose at least two to three centimeters higher. Homemade grape wine at this stage will not be completely clear.

It's time to finish developing the sweetness of the wine. After fermentation is over, sugar stops being processed and completely disappears into the taste of the drink. Add no more than two hundred and fifty grams per liter of wine, depending on your taste preferences. If you are completely satisfied with the sweetness of the resulting drink, then there is no need to sweeten the drink.

If you like strong drinks, you can add vodka, no more than fifteen percent of the total volume of wine. This helps to increase shelf life, but will make the taste harsher and may taste like alcohol.

Homemade grape wine recipes

How to make wine from grapes interests many summer residents and farmers who have small plantings of these berries. With the help of simple grape wine recipes, you can recycle excess fruits and please yourself and your loved ones with an intoxicating sweet drink.

Making wine from dry grapes

If any part of your harvest has dried out, do not rush to get upset. Wine made from dry berries is considered an excellent dessert drink. It will definitely find its place on your holiday table. Making wine at home using this recipe will not cause you any difficulties.

How to make wine from dry grapes? To do this you will need:

• One kilogram of dry grapes.
• Seven liters of water per kilogram of dry berries.
• Two kilograms of granulated sugar.

These are the main ingredients of wine. You will also need sourdough starter. To prepare it, take:

• Glass of water.
• A glass of raisins.
• Two to three tablespoons of granulated sugar.

Let's start with the starter:

1. Finely chop the raisins. You can use a meat grinder or blender.
2. Mix the resulting mass with sugar, stir well and dilute with warm water.
3. Leave the mixture in a warm place for several days until it sours.
4. Now the starter is ready and can be used to make wine.

Let's move on to working on homemade grape wine:

1. Sort the dry berries, remove twigs and other debris.
2. Add sugar to the grapes and mix thoroughly.
3. Pour the resulting mixture with warm water.
4. Add the starter and stir well.
5. The wort is ready. Now pour it into the prepared vessel and close it with a medical glove or a water seal (we discussed how to do this above).

After about two to three days, the resulting product will begin to ferment. This process will last about two months. When finished, the wine should be poured into another container to get rid of sediment. If necessary, it can also be filtered several times using cheesecloth - this will give the drink a purer color.

After all these manipulations, the wine should be bottled and stored in a dark, dry, cool place for three months.

Wine from frozen grapes

- a fairly popular dessert wine, it is produced in the USA and Canada. The drink has a very pleasant specific taste and aroma, since the secret of its preparation is that the main ingredients are grapes frozen on the vine.

At home, such wine is made very rarely, since it is absolutely not profitable; fifteen kilograms of frozen grapes yield only 350 milliliters of the drink. It is prepared in the same way as wine from dry berries. The only thing is that the grapes are pre-frozen at a temperature no higher than 8 degrees below zero.

As you can see, making wine from grapes is a fairly simple task. Any beginning gardener can handle it. This homemade drink can be stored for five years at a temperature of five to twelve degrees Celsius. If you did not add alcohol or vodka to the wine, then its strength will be approximately eleven to thirteen degrees.

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There are a very large number of ways to make wine at home from grapes. It’s simply impossible to describe everything! But we will consider only the most popular of them, describing each stage in detail.

In the article:

Necessary raw materials for winemaking

Today, wine is considered one of the most common alcoholic drinks in the world. It is drunk in all countries, and the number of varieties is simply amazing. According to the Bible, it was the vineyard that became the first crop that Noah grew after he saved humanity from the Flood. Repeating his feat, a huge number of people today grow their own vineyards and make their own wine from the harvest at home.

The main ingredient that is required in order to apply the recipe for making wine is, in fact, grapes. Its variety can be absolutely any available to you. In addition, you can combine red and light varieties, coming up with your own compositions.

The most common grape varieties that are used to make wine in our area are the following: Platovsky, Crystal, Druzhba, Festivalny and others.

Their popularity is due to their high sugar content, which is important for obtaining a sweet alcoholic drink.

The leader among elite wine varieties, of course, has always been and remains Isabella. The only thing needed to improve its taste is more sugar. Among others, we can also note the grapes that no producer of noble alcohol can do without: Sauvignon, Pinot Blanc (or Noir), Cabernet, Merlot, Aligote, Chardonnay.

Ripe berries are collected only by hand. The ideal time for this is the end of September - the beginning of December (before the first frost). It is important to carry out this procedure in dry weather, and not to wash the collected bunches in order to preserve the so-called wild yeast, which accumulates on the surface of the skin and is an essential component of fermentation.

After the grapes are harvested, it is necessary to immediately separate the berries from the branches and sort them out, eliminating dried, rotten, unripe or moldy berries. The maximum shelf life of collected berries is one day.

It should also be noted that grapes react very sensitively to any changes, therefore, after bringing them into the room where you will carry out further manipulations, let them warm up a little and “get used” to the new environment.

Vessels for making wine

All containers that you will use to make wine at home must be perfectly clean. It is best to wash them with baking soda and also pour boiling water over them.

The material from which wine-making utensils are made can be wood or glass. Plastic and enamel containers and stainless steel utensils are also acceptable, but no other metal, since there is a risk of it reacting with the wine material.

Wine tasting

Not a single stage of production is complete without this procedure, so be prepared for the fact that you will need to carefully analyze the product according to three parameters - taste, color and aroma. There are several basic rules that are recommended to be followed so that not only sampling, but also the subsequent consumption of your drink brings pleasure and even some benefit:

1. The final sample should be taken on a full stomach.
2. Before taking the final sample, it is recommended to stop drinking other alcohol.
3. Homemade wine is best drunk chilled.
4. The choice of snacks depends on the strength of your wine.
5. The optimal daily dose of wine consumption is one hundred milliliters. At the same time, you can prevent diseases such as anemia, changes in blood pressure, as well as get rid of attacks of radiculitis and help rejuvenate the body.

Among the contraindications for which it is not recommended to use either homemade or any kind are the following factors:

• Allergic intolerance to the berry itself.
• Health restrictions, in particular pregnancy, a certain age, state of mind and nervous system.
• Recovery period after surgery.
• Predisposition to alcohol dependence.

Homemade wine recipe

To prepare an alcoholic drink according to this recipe, it is best to take blue, also known as black, grapes or combine varieties. In the second case, the predominant berry should still be a dark variety.

Ingredients: ten kilograms of grapes, 50-200 grams of granulated sugar per liter of juice.

Cooking technology:

The period of active fermentation is up to forty days. If it increases, you should get rid of the resulting sediment. If the process ends after a week, the reason should be sought in the following problems:

• Depressurization of the bottle - check and fix.
• Exceeding the sugar concentration by 10-20 percent - add water in a volume of up to one hundred and fifty milliliters per liter of wort.
• Reduced activity of wild yeast - add sourdough.

Separating wine from sediment

Next comes the process of separating the wine from the sediment and pouring it into a bottle. For the first time, this recipe will be enough for you. To learn how to make homemade wine from grapes more professionally, you will need experience and some subtleties.

Storing finished wine

It is recommended to keep a dark glass bottle with the treasured liquid in a cool place, creating a slight slope for it so that the cork does not dry out and air does not get inside the bottle.

Shelf life is up to five years, subject to compliance with standards. If the wine is fortified, it can be stored for up to ten years.

If you want to know, how to make champagne- see the corresponding section.

Well, dear readers, we have now reached the topic of winemaking. Anyone who has learned how to make moonshine can already ask themselves the question - how to make wine at home?

Introduction

First, let's decide what we want to make - wine or mash for distillation. By “mash” I mean an unsuccessful wine, and there are a lot of chances to get something like that.

That's why I started a conversation with those who learned how to distill moonshine. All bad experiences in winemaking can be turned into excellent results in moonshine, so any result in winemaking should be positive, with very rare exceptions.

Well, let's begin. The main rule of a winemaker is good, or better yet excellent, raw materials; we will leave other options for moonshiners. The second thing we need to know is WHAT we want to get, not from what, but WHAT.

I think many people imagine that there are a great many varieties of wine, so we need to slightly decide what we want to get. Let me explain – wine is dry, semi-dry, semi-sweet, sweet, dessert, fortified, flavored, sparkling, sparkling, champagne, red, white, rose, etc. This is where winemaking begins - what am I going to do?!

In a nutshell: making wine means properly fermenting the juice of berries or fruits (and occasionally vegetables) to the desired state. “All you need to do is separate the juice and start its fermentation. But here a lot of surprises and incomprehensibility await inexperienced winemakers, and then difficulties.

Let's figure it out. Do we know how to collect berries for wine, when, which ones are more suitable, which ones are less suitable, and which ones should not be used to make wine at all? If the berries are purchased, then is it possible to make wine from them or not, how to prepare them for squeezing juice (it turns out this also needs to be done), how to squeeze the juice, where to drain it, how long you can store it, how to start the wine, what it is in will ferment, how to pour wine, again into what, what can cause wine to get sick, how to “cure”, what kind of wine should be obtained (dry or semi-dry, do you need dry ice for this or not :)), how to measure sugar in wine, juice, acidity, alcohol content, methods of storing wine, etc. and so on?

Scared? But it's not all that scary.

Required minimum knowledge

Let's start with the basics. The first wine can be prepared on the knee. To do this, it is enough to know what raw materials you want to make wine from, what kind of wine you want to get... and basically that’s it!

We prepare a starter - a “yeast starter” or buy cultural yeast (which we will talk about later), then look for the necessary berries and fruits (or collect those that grow on the site). We get the juice in any way (juicer, masher, then gauze and hands, a small press), you can ask your wife - she will come up with something (well, she asks for wine, not us).

Then add the starter and sugar to the juice (or without sugar, if the juice is very sweet), pour it into a large jar, put on a rubber glove and wait. When the glove falls (before that it should stand for a week or two), drain the young wine from the sediment, pour it back into a clean jar and put it in a cool place, wait another month or two. That's all - the wine is ready.

This technology for making homemade wine is also universal for industrial production, naturally with the complication of each process and the addition of many related operations.

But for a novice winemaker it is enough to know the minimum necessary information and several main stages of wine production.

1. The concept of varieties of wines.
2. Selection of raw materials.
3. Determination of its sugar content and acidity (the second is less significant for beginners).
4. The ability to make sourdough or the ability to find a store that sells wine yeast.
5. Knowledge of the basics of squeezing juices from berries and fruits.
6. Preparation of vessels for fermentation and storage of wine, as well as the place where it should ferment and be stored.
7. Knowledge of the basics of wine fermentation.
8. Strict hygiene (and this is in all seriousness).
9. Knowledge of arithmetic and algebra (beginner), recording information on long-term memory media (notepad and pen).
10. The desire to get an amazing drink.

Well, now you are beginning to understand a little how to make homemade wine, and what needs to be done for this.

Let's go through the points.

Let's get to know wines a little

• The first thing that comes to everyone’s mind is red and white wines, everything is clear here, however, there are also pink ones.
• The second is seasoned (vintage, collectible) and unseasoned (ordinary). That is, almost all home winemaking is ordinary wines.

• Grape, raisin, fruit (a separate category - stone fruits), vegetable (from watermelons, melons and all sorts of vegetables and plants inappropriate for wine).

• Dry - wines containing almost no sugar (completely fermented), strength up to 11%. For example, dry champagne is called brut, everyone knows this champagne. Dry wine is the most capricious wine in taste, since the taste of the wine is felt very brightly, without being masked by sugar.
• Semi-dry - wines with a sugar content of no more than 3%, alcohol also up to 11%. Excellent wines for most winemakers. When done well, they have a great taste with a slight sweetness.
• Semi-sweet – sugar contains up to 8%, alcohol up to 13%. Sugar is felt quite strongly in the taste and can hide some of the shortcomings of the wine; it is very often produced by most winemakers.
• Dessert (semi-sweet and sweet) - they already have a lot of sugar - up to 20%, alcohol - up to 15-17%. This is already “heavy artillery”, such wines are drunk little by little and are made by amateurs.
• Liqueur - very sweet wines contain sugar up to 35%, alcohol up to 17%. Almost everyone knows about them.
• Strong wines - sugar varies from 1 to 14%, but alcohol reaches 20%. Wines are not for everyone.
• Flavored (dessert and strong) - sugar contains from 6 to 18%, alcohol contains up to 18%. These are wines with the addition of various flavoring plant additives. A striking example is vermouth.
• There are also categories – varietal and blended. These are wines either from one type of raw material, or from a mixture of different varieties of berries or fruits.
• Wines are also divided into fresh, medium and sour (tart) - categories based on acid content. It tastes good.

I won’t torment you anymore and overwhelm you with tastes and aromas, this is for the pros. There is already a lot of information to begin with.

Selection of raw materials

By and large, wine can be made from almost all types of berries and fruits. Only from some it is very easy to squeeze the juice, but from others it is very difficult, from some the wines are very tasty, but from others - not so much.

The most common raw materials in the central region of Russia are various berries (cherries, gooseberries, raspberries, grapes, currants, rowan berries, strawberries and others) and fruits - of course apples, pears, plums, and peaches and apricots, which are quite exotic for us , cherry plum, etc. Some people make wine from watermelons, melons, persimmons and other berries and fruits that are questionable for wine, but this is definitely exotic.

All fruits and berries for winemaking must be clean, dry and undamaged. Fruits and berries are not washed before extracting the juice, so as not to remove the necessary microflora and yeast cultures from their surface. Most winemakers immediately separate the branches and get rid of the seeds as quickly as possible, but there are recipes where they are necessary for the future wine.

The best raw material for wine is not just grapes, but “correct” grapes, that is, the most suitable for winemaking, and this rule applies to all types of berries and fruits.

For example, you cannot get good wine from very sweet varieties like “Kish-mish”, “Lady fingers”, black sweet grapes, etc. It is also difficult to obtain excellent wine from some varieties of apples and other fruits. Therefore, if you are planning to buy berries and fruits, be sure to find out the variety and its applicability to winemaking.

Berries collected on their own plot (in the central regions) are almost all suitable for winemaking, with minor drawbacks - low sugar content, high acidity, and there are difficulties with plum wines and the like.

Sugar content, it’s clear how you can increase it, acidity can be reduced by diluting the juice with water, and other problems can all be solved. The exception is the pear, strange as it may seem at first glance, but the wine it produces is very, very mediocre, and is only used for blending or distillation.

As I said earlier, berries and fruits must be of very high quality (if you want to get good or excellent wine), collected in dry, warm weather and stored in suitable conditions.

Purchased moldy grapes, rotten berries and fruits processed into wine are the privilege of moonshiners, not winemakers.

Get it in your head - YOU CAN'T GET GOOD WINE FROM BAD RAW MATERIALS!

Freshly picked berries and fruits should “rest” for a bit - a week or two (except for perishable ones), something will ripen, something will gain additional sugar, in some places unnecessary processes will end or necessary ones will begin, just take this into account.

Next, you need to determine the sugar content of your raw materials. There are many ways to do this - the simplest is to use a ready-made table of sugar content in berries and fruits.

Table - Sugar and acid content in berries and fruits

Another way is to purchase various devices for determining the sugar content of juice or wort (wort is a wine material or a mixture of juice (juices), water and sugar), the simplest and most accessible of them is a sugar meter. Let me immediately inform you that the sugar content of the must for a good wine should be 20-25%, that is, 1 liter of must should contain 200-250 grams of sugar.

You can find instruments for determining acidity, but this is expensive and not everyone will understand how to use such a device. Therefore, we follow the proven path - we use the table. The average required value of wort acidity is 0.7-0.9%, this also just needs to be remembered.

The next point is our smoke break. Kidding.

Preparation of sourdough (wild yeast) or breeding of ChKD (pure yeast cultures)

Before squeezing juice for wine, we need to worry about how we will “launch” the wine material.

The wine can “start” itself - on wild yeast in the berries themselves, but while this wine is “starting”, something irreparable can happen - vinegar yeast or the “wrong” yeast will start first, which will lead to very sad consequences.

One of the common phrases on the Internet, “Homemade wine without yeast,” is a myth. Without yeast, you can only make juice diluted with alcohol (there is such a pseudo wine - ratafia). Wine is made only by fermentation, but with what yeast is the question.

If you simply leave the juice in a warm place, then there will be two options - either (good) it will ferment on its own, or (bad) it will sour (go into vinegar) or spoil.

But now we only need the first result, which means we are looking for yeast. The most active wild yeasts are found on grapes and raspberries, so we will start from them.

• Option one - sourdough (wild yeast)

For sourdough, you need exclusively ripe, clean, but UNWASHED BERRIES. All wild yeast is on their surface. After heavy rain, the yeast can literally be washed away, so we are waiting for dry weather.

The recipe is simple – 4:2:1. Four parts of crushed berries, for example, 4 cups of crushed grapes or raspberries, two parts of water - 2 cups and one part of sugar - 1 cup. The main thing is to maintain proportions.

Mix everything, pour into a jar and cover with gauze or a loose lid, place in a warm place (20-25g). After 3-4 days, the starter will be ready (all the pulp (crushed berries) will float to the top, there will be sediment at the bottom, and in the middle there will be an almost transparent wort with a wine-yeast smell).

Now the starter (yeast starter) must be strained and squeezed through cheesecloth, poured into a separate bottle (not tightly closed) and consumed as needed. The shelf life of this starter is a maximum of 10-14 days.

As you understand, SOURDOUGH MUST BE PREPARED IN ADVANCE.

The ammunition consumption is 200-300 ml per 10 liters of must (future wine).

• Option two - PKD (pure yeast cultures)

Everything is simpler here, you need to find a wine shop, a good consultant and buy the necessary yeast (usually in bags).

There are a lot of types of yeast, so read the literature and listen to experts. Starting yeast is quite simple - a glass of warm water, a tablespoon of sugar, pour yeast into the water, stir - after 15-20 minutes the yeast is usually ready (foaming) and can be poured into the wort. There are some disadvantages - the not 100% availability of wine shops and the price.

From experience, I can say that ChKDs are much superior to “savages”, due to the predictability and stability of the result, uniformity of fermentation, taste programming, etc. But more on that later.

What do we have next? And then we have juice extraction

We won’t go too deep here. The juicer is everything to us. Then there are meat grinders (for fruits) and squeezing the juice manually through gauze or cloth, chopping the berries in other ways, squeezing them with presses, hydraulic presses, legs and other parts of the body and machine parts.

Better juice extraction is achieved by preliminary fermentation. That is, the berries or fruits are crushed, then starter or CKD (pure yeast cultures) are added, and after 2-5 days the juice is squeezed out. We will talk about this in more detail in future publications.

I would like to add that the purer the juice after pressing, the better the wine will clarify (become transparent) after fermentation, i.e. The taste of the future wine directly depends on the quality of the juice.

Any novice winemaker needs to be introduced to the basics of wine fermentation

What is fermentation? To begin with, it is enough to know that this is the work of yeast cultures to “eat” sugar (and some organic substances) and convert it into alcohol, carbon dioxide and waste products. This, in a nutshell, is the process of wine formation. Fermentation occurs in two stages - violent and quiet. We'll talk about this below.

After starting wine with yeast, you need to follow several rules:

Now let's talk about dishes and other necessary things

If you don’t think about this, then in the process of preparing homemade wine there will be many unnecessary stops, searching for suitable containers, cups, spoons, measures, tubes, funnels and other junk, which will take a lot of time and nerves.

Here is the minimum required set for a winemaker (for about 20 liters of wine):

• Containers for fruits and berries (volume 30 l).
• Juicer (either a press or a wife with a masher, a meat grinder and gauze).
• Measuring utensils and instruments (1 liter measure, scales, thermometer, sugar meter).
• A couple of liter pans of 3-4 enamel or stainless steel (for water, juice, cake (squeezed berries) and other things).
• An enamel basin or large saucepan for manually squeezing juice.
• Funnels for pouring wort into carboys and bottles, preferably different (large and medium).
• A plastic (or preferably silicone) transparent tube-hose for pouring wine material, 2-3 m long and 10 mm in diameter.
• 1-2 glass bottles of 20 liters (or 2-4 - 10 liters) for fermentation. As a last resort, 3 liter cans in the amount of 8-10 pcs., caps for all containers, rubber gloves or water seals.
• Wine bottles 0.7l 28-30 pcs. with new wine corks. Cork stopper. This is for storing and maturing wine.
• Detergents and disinfectants.
• Calculator, notepad, pen.

Here we finally come to the culture of production and hygiene of winemaking

The biggest problem for a winemaker is spoiled wine. What a shame it is to collect a lot of fruits and berries or spend money on buying them, processing them, squeezing the juice, taking measurements, adding sugar, adding yeast. Pour into bottles and after a week or two see how the wine has molded, bloomed or turned into vinegar. Therefore, the problem of cleanliness and sterility for winemakers is very relevant.

How is this resolved?

• Firstly: It is necessary to prepare the raw materials for the juice well. Cut out all rotten spots, cracks, wormholes from apples (or other fruits), preferably remove seeds. Sort all the berries, remove rotten and dry berries, remove twigs and debris. It is better to immediately put the sorted berries and fruits into processing.
• Secondly: All utensils for winemaking must be very clean, or preferably sterile. When pouring wine material (must), this is done several times - to remove the wine from the sediment, for aeration (saturation of the wine with oxygen) and for bottling - the tubes and containers must be thoroughly washed with soda or special means (they will be discussed in detail later) . It is better to take new bottles for storing wine (sold in specialized stores) or very well washed used ones. Cork stoppers must be used exclusively new ones; before capping, they must be steamed with boiling water.

Well, don’t forget about yourself (about clean hands and unfrazzled hair).

All these measures will practically eliminate the winemaker’s bad results.

Diseases of wine, spoilage, treatment of only “sick” wine, prevention - this is a very difficult topic and deserves a separate publication, so stay tuned.

Now I'll focus on the notes. It is better to write down all the steps of a winemaker, even a beginner, in a notebook

First, there should be records of recipes for the proposed wine; after choosing, you need to consistently write down the technology for making wine.

Example (briefly):

Cherry wine (date of picking berries) (date of making homemade wine).

Berries – 14 l

Pulp (crushed berries) – 12 l (after the combine)

Water – 4.0 l (0.53 l / 1 l juice) (according to the recipe 0.46-0.78 l / 1 l juice)

Juice – 7.5 l

Wort (water + juice) – 11.5 l

Granulated sugar – 1.9 kg (0.25 kg/1 l of juice) (according to the recipe 0.2-0.25 kg/1 l of juice)

Sourdough (raspberry) – 0.7 l

(date of preparation)

Wine material (young wine) – 13-14 l

Added sugar:

4th day (date) – 0.45 kg (0.060 kg / 1 liter of juice) (installing a water seal)

7th day (date) – 0.45 kg (0.060 kg / 1 liter of juice)

10th day (date) – 0.25 kg (0.030 kg / 1 liter of juice)

1st transfer (removal from sediment, aeration) (date)

2nd transfer (removal from sediment, aeration) (date)

3rd transfer (cleaning to the cellar for quiet fermentation) (date)

Bottling (quantity) (date)

The quality of the wine sample is tasty, but with a slight yeasty aftertaste, moderately tart, with a strong cherry aroma, semi-dry, strong 14-16%.

Final sample of aged wine – (date) (characteristics)

It is better to put labels on the bottles. It is aesthetically pleasing and there will be no confusion.

If you prepared the wine, bottled it, tasted it and didn’t write anything down, then in 3-5 days you will forget everything - both dates and steps. It will be impossible to repeat any masterpiece in the future.

But we always want to pleasantly surprise our loved ones and friends with wonderful wine of our own production, more than once.

Well, the beginning of acquaintance with winemaking has been made; in the following publications we will dwell in more detail on all stages of winemaking and will not forget about interesting recipes.