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Yeast – Nature’s Wine Maker
As much pride as our world-famous wineries claim to have in their century-old establishments, the majority of the burden of wine making actually falls to a single-celled organism: yeast. In fact, much of the art of wine making is actually the art of feeding and nurturing the yeast. A famous quote from Dr. Roger Boulton from the University of California illustrates: “Ninety percent of wine making has nothing to do with the winemaker. All a winemaker is doing is preventing spoilage, introducing some unique style to the wine and bottling it.”
So what is yeast, and what is it doing? Yeast is a single-celled organism, a strain of fungus. It moves freely in the environment and when it finds nutrition it replicates quickly to form a colony. The earliest known usage of yeast was in ancient Egypt, where it was often used for bread making. In fact, anyone who has ever had to culture yeast for bread making will understand much of what it takes to be a winemaker.
There are many different kinds of yeast, and the ones generally helpful for wine making are of the genus Saccharomyces (Sakchar meaning sugar and Myces meaning fungus), of which there are over a dozen to pick from, each which adds different characteristics to wine. The yeasts of this genus consume the natural sugar found in fruit juice and transform it into almost equal parts of carbon dioxide and alcohol.And there’s the rub: without yeast, it’s just grape juice.
So then, if wine making is an art, then its primary tool is the ability to control yeast. Fresh pressed grape juice will typically already have dozens of different kinds of yeasts, as well as a number of other microbial invaders. If you left the juice as is, it would develop into wine on its own, though it would likely be over-alcoholic and undrinkable. To create a truly great wine, the winemaker must have a specific yeast in mind, introduce it at the right time, feed it and nurture it, and allowing it to die and be cleaned whilst preserving the fruits of its labor. This involves a rigorous control over temperature, humidity, and quality of fruit.
Over the many centuries since wine makers have bottled their products, they have been returning the old skins and seeds of crushed grapes (the pomace) to the vineyards to be used in fertilization. The grape skins are breeding grounds for yeast, and by returning yeast-rich pomace to the vines, vineyards have managed to subtly alter the natural yeasts that occur in their fields. Over time, the selected strain of yeast begins to dominate so rigidly that a winemaker can simply encourage spontaneous fermentation. Those making homemade wines don’t have this luxury, and even established vineyards may be centuries away from such a yeast domination.
So despite the vigilant claims of expert wine makers across the world, it’s obvious that the real master winemaker is yeast.
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Instructions For Wine Making
Making home-made wine is a wonderful and easy way to profit from your home grown grapes and all the work you put into growing them. The basic steps for wine making are:
Picking the grapes
Crushing the grapes
Fermenting the juices
Clarifying and bottling the liquid
Aging the wine
For white wine you use white grapes and for red wine you use red or black grapes. However, you can make white wine from red grapes if you first remove the skin. You might also need to remove the seeds and stems. Each component of the grape, including the stems and the skins, contribute to the aroma and flavor of the finished wine.
Materials:
To make one standard bottle of wine (75cl) you will want about two pounds of grapes. Ten pounds of grapes will yield a gallon of wine. In addition to the grapes you will need a few accessories for making your wine. Visit your local wine-making supply store to find the items or look on the Internet for suppliers. Here is a list of the essential items.
Grapes
Large vat for crushing grapes
Hand masher (or use your hands)
Bottles, corks
Campden tablets
Wine Yeast
Barrel fitted with an airlock
Syphon and carboy (clean and sterilized)
Hydrometer (To measure the specific gravity)
A wine-making kit is the easiest way to get started, and as you progress you might enjoy upgrading your tools as you gain experience in using them. You don’t have to crush the grapes by treading on them. This is a good way to do large productions, but for small productions, mashing them by using a hand-masher (or your hands) will do just as well. Don’t fill the vat too full because the grapes will foam and froth as they ferment. When the grapes are mashed, leave them for a day or two before beginning the fermentation. Campden tablets are used to prevent wild yeast from growing during this stage.
Proper wine yeast should be used, not bread yeast, because the flavor is quite different. Stir in the yeast by hand, cover the vat and leave the wine to ferment for about a week. At the end of the week you can strain the wine. The bubbling and boiling effect should have subsided before you strain the wine and throw away the pulp. Pour the liquid into a barrel with an airlock so that carbon dioxide, which forms as the wine ferments, can escape. The wine should be protected from exposure to the air at this stage or it will oxidize and won’t be good for drinking.
Over the next two to three years, sediment will fall to the bottom of the barrel and the liquid will turn clear. After about three weeks the wine is ready to “rack” or siphon into the carboy to remove the clear wine from the sediment. The carboy should be sterilized to prohibit the growth of bacteria. Siphon the wine every couple of months as the wine ages. When you notice there is no fresh sediment, and the liquid is perfectly clear, the wine is ready for bottling. Another test is to check the specific gravity with a hydrometer. It should be below 1.000.
As you can see winemaking is quite easy. Making truly fine wine, however, is an art as well as a science. Aging your wine a few more months in the bottle will improve the flavor, but once it is bottled, you can basically begin drinking it.
Wine Cork Screws and Openers
There are many varieties of wine cork screws and openers available that will suit everyone from the new wine drinker to the all-out, wine cellar owning enthusiast. What you need will simply depend on your personal needs. Lever style corkscrews are good for beginners. This really makes opening wine bottles easier than the hand screw type. This style is sure to quickly and easily open up wine bottles with great speed. This is the easiest type of opener but it is pretty big in your drawer in space. They tend to range from $ 30-$ 150, depending on how complex it is.
The waiter’s corkscrew is the old fashioned opener that resembles a pocket knife with the cork screw and bottle opener. This is one of the hardest wine cork screws and openers to use and requires a good bit of work and practice to get good at using. It is very inexpensive and takes up little space when closed. It also contains a knife which is helpful in removing foil on a bottle of wine. The twisting pull cork is a handy little device which is a step up from the waiter’s corkscrew. You simply pop this on the bottle, twist it down, and pull out the cork! A quality model is important and for those with wrist troubles, this may not be the right type of opener.
Winged corkscrews are yet another type of wine cork screws and openers. This is a cork screw that when twisted downward, the wings come up. When the wings are up completely, you push them downward, which really saves on hand and arm power if you are not strong. The two-pronged opener is not a cork screw, and you get the two metal prongs down the two sides of the cork. Once in, you pull and twist until the cork comes out. This is really good for old wine with a damaged cork, but this style of wine bottle opener is not easy to use and can be damaged itself if not used properly.
The final type of cork screw is the air pump corkscrew. You pump air which is forced between the wine and the cork, forcing the cork to rise up and come out. Some people don’t feel that this is method is good for the wine, so it is not a very popular one. As you can see there are many types of wine cork screws and openers to choose from. The style you choose depends on how you will use it and which method you will prefer.
The Wine Glasses For Customers
When you are going to be buying promotional wine glasses for your customers, there are several things to consider. It is not as simple as just buying coffee mugs for customers, there is much more to it than that. You need to consider several things when buying promotional items for your customers.
Wine glasses need to be made out of certain glass because if the wine glass is made from cut or fused glass, it will interfere with the taste of the wine. Brown glass and lead crystal glass are considered the best types of glass for wine. Lead crystal glasses are considered the best glasses for wine because they look good and are the best material for the flavor of the wine.
The shapes of the glasses are very important to keep the flavor and the aroma at its highest level. In order to qualify as a wine glass, the opening of the glass must not be wider than the widest part of the bowl of the glass. The wine glass also needs to have a long stem to keep fingers from smearing the glass, and the glass stem prevents your hand from warming the wine, as is found with brandy glasses and their short stems.
Red wine glasses have a rounder and wider bowl which increases the rate of oxidization, which subtly alters the flavor and aroma. Oxidization is better for red wines than white wines, hence the different glass.
White wine glasses can vary greatly in their size and shapes. These glasses will be designed so that there is minimal oxidization because this is not something that you want with your white wine. These glasses have smaller mouths, and that reduced surface area reduces the overall rate of oxidization. These glasses are also used for champagne since you do not want much oxidization with champagne either.
When you are giving away promotional glasses, you want to make sure that you give your customers glasses that they will want. While you will always have your company name and logo on the personalized glasses, you should ensure that you give customers who drink red wine, red wine glasses, and vise versa for white wine glasses. This ensures that the glasses will be used on a regular basis by your customers, and that gives your brand the most exposure which is very important.
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Six Basic Steps to Make Wine
Do You Know the Basic Steps to Make Wine? These Winemaking Instructions will Test Your Wine Savvy
All wines are made differently, where the winemaking process is easily adapted to the different grape cultivars that exist. While the process of making wine is one and only, there are many variations that you can apply to better suit the style of wine you wish to brew, and the type of grape varietal that you’ve harvested for your winemaking.
Below you will find the basic wine making steps and instructions to achieving a delicious bottle of wine. You can follow this to the t, or tweak it in your best knowledge to improve the quality and taste of your resulting brew.
1) Sanitization
Alike other processes of food and beverage production, all materials and consumables must be ridded of bacteria and natural yeasts, which can alter or throw off the quality and flavor of your wine. To eliminate harmful microorganisms successfully, use cold water to wash your produce and allow to air dry. Next, prepare a solution made of 5 crushed Campden tablets, in half a gallon of water. Cover al surfaces with the mixed solution, let act for ten minutes and rinse. Allow surfaces to air-dry thoroughly before you begin using your workstation.
2) Crushing
In winemaking, crushing is done to create a must (liquid and solids) out of the grapes. While crushing is generally achieved with the use of a crushing grate, it used to be traditionally done by feet stomping. Nowadays, tools like crushing grates or wooden paddles allow us to obtain the same result, with much less space and physical effort.
For white wines, grapes that are crushed must then be separated from their skins, stems and seeds (also called lees) in order to prevent the extraction of color into the juice and wine-to-be. For red wines, the lees are left in the must to incorporate tannins (the pigment responsible for red wine color) into the brew.
3) Preparing a Starting Liquid
In order to have an efficient fermentation process, you must make a starting liquid with the wine making yeast that you have chosen. To prepare a starting liquid, allow 24hrs for yeast to wake. Mix yeast, with a jug of lukewarm water and sugar. Cover and let sit for a day. In the meantime, place the must and/or grape juice in a primary fermentor; mix in 4 crushed camped tablets and cover. . If desired, incorporate two crushed Campden tablets to rid your crushed grapes of any bacteria or unwanted yeasts from interfering with the wine fermentation.
4) Fermenting
Once your starting liquid has rested for a day, you’ll see foam forming at the top. Incorporate the liquid to the primary fermentor along with the must (for red wines) and/or grape juice (for white wines). A yeast nutrient can also be added at this point. Top container off with water up to the 5.5gal mark. Do not mix or stir. Cover.
5) Fermenting II
After 2 days have elapsed, you must now mix in the fermenting liquid twice a day. Do this until a week of fermentation is complete, or modify this step according to the type of wine that you are making. Alterations will include temperature conditions, length of fermentation and other details in the process.
6) Racking
Once the grape juice has been made into wine via fermentation, you are now ready to rack the wine and eliminate sediments. If you are making re wine, make sure to remove the pomace (or left over seeds, stems and skins) that float on the surface of the fermentor. Extract any retained juice by using a mesh bag to squeeze the liquid through. Using a hose, siphon the wine into a carboy, making sure to leave any sediment in the bottom of the primary fermentor.
Top off carboy with water if necessary (up to measured line), and set up a moistened airlock to prevent the intrusion of oxygen in the wine. Allow the wine to sit for 4 weeks, and do a second racking to eliminate other sediments that could remain in the wine. A third racking might be necessary for heavily-sedimented red wines, or if you wish to clarify your wine further. Clarifying agents can also be used to eliminate the need for a third racking, yet many winemakers recommend doing this to achieve a smooth, nicely bodied wine.
Following the racking, you’ll bottle and age. Make sure to adapt the aging process to the style of wine that you wish to make. To your winemaking success!
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