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Alcohol is now expensive, and its quality is questionable. Even people who buy expensive elite wines are not immune from counterfeits. It is very unpleasant when a holiday or party ends in poisoning. Meanwhile, rural residents, summer residents and owners of country estates have the opportunity to supply high-quality home-made alcohol to their table. The easiest way to make wine from grapes is at home.
Even city dwellers at the end of the season or during a trip to the country with friends can buy several boxes of sunny berries. And making wine from it will not be difficult even for people who know nothing about winemaking, since recipes are not difficult to find.
Raw materials for wine production
Alcoholic drinks can be made from any fruit or berries, even not very sweet ones. But the easiest way to do this is from grapes - as if by nature itself, it was intended specifically for winemaking. If the crop is harvested at the right time and handled correctly, then water, sugar and sourdough simply will not be needed.
True, without additional ingredients you can make exclusively dry wine from grapes. For dessert, sweet and fortified ones, you will have to add from 50 to 200 g of sugar, and possibly water, for every 10 kg of berries. Moreover, foreign liquid is added during wine production only when the juice turns out to be excessively sour - to such an extent that the cheekbones cramp and the tongue tingles. In other cases, you should not add water - it worsens the taste.
The best grape wine at home will come from self-grown berries. Their surface contains so-called “wild” yeast, which ensures the fermentation process. If you buy grapes from hand or in a store, you will definitely have to wash them. This way you will remove any remaining pesticides that may have been used to treat the berries. We will tell you how to prepare a starter for purchased grapes separately.
Isabelle grape varieties
Wine made from Lydia grapes and other Isabella varieties is often unfairly accused of being harmful to health. This lie was spread by French producers in order to devalue North American alcohol. In fact, the wine and juice from Lydia turn out excellent, although not everyone likes these grapes fresh because of the slimy pulp.
Harvesting
To make wine, the grapes must be harvested on time. Greens The berries are sour; when using them, you will definitely have to add sugar and water. And this not only spoils the taste, but also leads to an increase in the content of methyl alcohol, which is dangerous to health, in the wine. Overripe grapes threaten to spoil the wort due to acetic fermentation that has begun in the berries.
It is best to pick grapes on a dry, fine day, and not earlier than 2-3 days after rain or watering. You will have 2 days to process the raw materials, after which the berries will begin to lose moisture, taste and nutrients. In addition, putrefactive processes will begin, which will not only spoil the taste of grape wine - they will destroy it even during fermentation.
Spoiled grapes should not be used to produce wine.
Preparing containers
Before you start making wine from grapes at home, you need to take care of the container. Typically used:
- Three-liter jars - for a small amount of grape drink. They are washed well and then sterilized. As a seal, which is necessary during wine fermentation, a special lid or a medical glove is used, after first piercing one of the fingers with a needle.
- Ten or twenty liter glass cylinders. This tattoo is most often used for making wine at home. It is difficult to sterilize them, so usually containers for fermenting grape juice are first thoroughly washed with hot water and soda, and then rinsed with cold water. Alternatively, they can be fumigated with sulfur. Large cylinders are equipped with a water seal, consisting of a jar filled with liquid and a lid with a hermetically attached tube.
- The best elite grape wines are matured in oak barrels. If you have the opportunity to purchase such a container, you can consider yourself lucky.Take care of it like the apple of your eye, because if you use a barrel for pickling or fermenting fruit even once, you will never be able to make wine from grapes in it. First, oak containers are soaked, changing the water daily: new ones - for 10 days, those already used for alcohol production - 3 days. Then steam with boiling water and soda ash (25 g per bucket) and rinse with warm water. The processing of oak barrels for the production of wine from grapes at home is completed by fumigation with sulfur. A water seal is also installed here.
Preparing sourdough
Fermentation, which underlies the preparation of any wine, including grape wine, is a complex chemical process. It is caused by yeast, microorganisms that break down sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. When preparing homemade wine from grapes, natural fermentation is most often used, contained on the surface of the berries in the form of a white coating. In order to preserve the yeast, the clusters are not rinsed before fermentation.
But sometimes grapes have to be washed, for example, if pesticides were used shortly before harvest or they were bought in a store or market. In the north, the grapes simply may not have time to ripen to the end. Then, to make wine from grapes, you have to use a special starter. We will give three recipes that are used most often.
Grape starter
Before preparing wine, collect some ripe grapes of any variety and mash the berries. Add 1 part water and 0.5 sugar to 2 parts pulp. Place the mixture in a bottle, shake well and seal with cotton wool. Place in a dark place with a temperature of 22-24 degrees for fermentation, then strain.
To produce dessert grape wine, take 300 g (3%) of starter per 10 liters of juice, and 200 g (2%) of dry yeast. It should be stored for no more than 10 days.
Raisin sourdough
Pour 200 g of raisins, 50 g of sugar into a bottle, pour in 300-400 g of lukewarm water, close with a cotton plug. This starter is used in the same way as one made from fresh grapes and is stored in the cold for no more than 10 days. Later it can turn sour and ruin the wine.
Sourdough from wine lees
If for some reason you are not satisfied with the raisin starter, but you need to ferment late-ripening grapes, you can use the sediment of previously prepared wine as yeast. To do this, it is enough to add 1% grounds to the wort.
Wine production
The technology for making wine from grapes has been developed for centuries. Although the process of fermentation and aging of light alcoholic drinks follows similar patterns, each supplier has its own secrets, which are often guarded more strictly than state secrets. In some countries, for example in the Caucasus, France or Italy, there are families who have been cultivating grapes and producing wine for many generations. They elevated it to the rank of art and would never share the mystery of preparing a solar drink not only with strangers, but also with each other.
We will lift the veil of secrecy a little and give you the simplest recipe for grape wine.
Wine classification
This is a broad topic that could be the subject of more than one article. Beginner winemakers need to know what they can prepare:
- table wines from grapes, which are obtained exclusively as a result of natural fermentation - dry and semi-sweet;
- fortified wines, the recipe of which may include rectified alcohol - strong (up to 20% alcohol) and dessert (12-17%);
- aromatized – strong or dessert wines made from grapes, in the preparation of which infusions of aromatic herbs and roots are used.
What is the difference between red and white wines
There are red and white wines made from grapes. Their main difference is that the fermentation of the former occurs together with the skin and seeds (pulp). Consequently, coloring and tannins dissolve in the wort. Thus, red wine made from grapes differs from white wine not only in color, but also in its rich aroma and high tannin content, which gives the drink astringency.
Preparation of raw materials
The grapes collected for wine are sorted, all rotten and green berries, leaves, twigs and other debris are removed. You can completely pick off the fruits, but some owners prefer to leave some of the ridges for fermentation to get a richer taste.
If you are going to prepare wine in a 10-liter container, you will need 10 kg of grapes to fill it. Do not wash your own raw materials or those obtained from a reliable source, so as not to use sourdough for fermentation, but to use the “wild” yeast located on the surface of the berries.
To prepare red wine, grapes are placed in portions into a stainless or enamel container and crushed by hand. Then, together with the pulp, they are poured into a glass jar or other container for fermentation. It is better not to use any mechanical devices for kneading berries, as if the seeds are damaged, the wine will become excessively bitter.
Wine from white grapes at home is most often prepared without pulp, from one juice obtained using a hand press. It will be less fragrant, but more tender and light. Naturally, in order to White wine fermented well, you need to use sourdough.
First fermentation
Cover the container with grape juice prepared for making wine with gauze or a clean cloth and place it in a warm place to ferment. It is best if the temperature there is between 25-28 degrees, but not lower than 16, otherwise you will get a very aromatic vinegar.
After 2-3 days, the grapes will begin to ferment, pulp on future red wine it will float to the top, on white wine a head of foam will simply appear. The wort should be stirred several times a day with a wooden spatula.
After about 5 days, the grape juice from the fermentation container should be drained through a colander lined with several layers of clean gauze, the pulp should be squeezed out and poured into a glass container. This not only cleanses the wort of solid particles, but also saturates it with oxygen. Try not to disturb the sediment that has accumulated at the bottom - you don't need it, pour it out or use it as a starter for apple wine.
Second fermentation
Glass containers for wine production must be filled 70% with fermented and pulp-free grape juice. If you want to make a fortified drink, or the starting material is too acidic for normal fermentation, you can add sugar. It is not poured in immediately, but in parts, each time 50 g per liter of juice.If necessary, sugar can be added as the fermentation of the wine subsides every 3-4 days.
If the grapes were very sour, you can add water, but not more than 500 ml per liter of juice.
Install a water seal on the cylinder, which is a rubber or silicone tube with a diameter of 8-10 mm and a length of up to half a meter, one end of which is hermetically mounted in the lid, and the other is lowered into a glass of water. You can put a medical glove on a three-liter jar of wine by puncturing one of your fingers. The fermentation of sugar contained in grapes into alcohol must occur in the absence of oxygen. If the seal of the container is broken, you will get vinegar instead of wine.
Fermentation should take place at a temperature of 16 to 28 degrees. For red wine it should be higher than for white wine. Yeast stops working already at 15 degrees.
The fermentation process can be observed by the intensity of bubbles. When it becomes weak, add another 50 g of sugar (if necessary). To do this, pour 1-2 liters of wine from grapes, dissolve the required amount of sweet sand and return it to the fermentation container.
Every 2% sugar in the must increases the strength of the wine by 1%. At home, you will not be able to raise it above 13-14%, since it is at this concentration of alcohol that the yeast stops working. Without any sugar at all, you will get dry wine from grapes, the alcohol content of which does not exceed 10%.
How to make a stronger drink? It's simple. Once fermentation is complete, add alcohol, a process called blending.
Fermentation of the simplest homemade grape wine usually lasts 12-20 days.
The wine from the grapes is removed from the lees no earlier than the fermentation processes stop. That is, 1-2 days after the water seal stops releasing air or the glove placed on the bottle falls off.
Using a siphon, pour the wine into a clean container. Make sure that the lower end of the tube does not approach the sediment more than 2-3 cm. The wine will not be completely transparent.
Quiet fermentation
Maturation, which is also called quiet fermentation, can last from 40 days to a year. Long aging only makes sense when making wine from grapes in oak barrels. Glass containers will not allow the drink to further improve its properties.
Quiet fermentation takes place in a container under a water seal in a dark, cool room at a temperature of 8-12 degrees, but under no circumstances higher than 22. Young white wine can be tasted after 40 days, red wine after 2-3 months.
Clarification of wine
When the wine from the grapes is ripe, it is bottled and hermetically sealed so as not to turn into vinegar. The drink will not be perfectly clear; to fix this, it must be cleared of impurities.
Artificial process wine clarification called pasting and is carried out using clay, gelatin or egg yolk. It should be noted that the degree of transparency of the grape drink does not affect the taste in any way.
The finished wine is stored in the cold in a horizontal or inclined position (neck up).
We invite you to watch a video about making homemade wine from grapes:
Conclusion
You can drink your own grape wine without worrying about its quality. It can decorate your holiday table or lift your spirits on an ordinary gray day.
