How is wine produced?

It may seem a relatively simple question to answer to those in the trade in the most general terms, but for those that aren't, it may seem like some kind of wizardry, with some wizards clearly better at it than others when it comes to the final product you consume.

Like anything, with wine-making you can go as deep into the subject as you want, but for the purposes of this we will keep it to the key processes revolving around the following areas which need to be completed in order to make a bottle of wine from a bunch of grapes;

• Grow grapes
• Harvest grapes
• Crush grapes
• Ferment grapes into wine
• Clarify wine
• Age wine
• Bottle wine

1. Grow Grapes

Not as straightforward as it may seem.  You need to make sure you have a good vineyard site to begin with (exposure to sun, soil structure etc) and then grow the most appropriate variety for the combination.  i.e. you may like Shiraz, but if you own land in Mosel it won't work.  Then there are the vagaries of weather conditions; you can't rely on every year to be a good year, particularly in marginal climate regions.  Add in pruning regimes, canopy management, and treatments natural or otherwise, just getting a quality bunch of grapes to begin with is a really difficult proposition, and this really is the most important part of the wine-making process.  As the saying goes, 'you can't make a silk purse from a pig's ear'.

2. Harvest Grapes

Depending on where your vineyard site is, machine harvesting may not even be an option.  Think Douro Valley terraces or 30% Mosel slopes etc.  Then depending on climate, you might need to harvest at night when it's cooler, so will require significant amounts of labour to get the grapes in to begin with.

3. Crush Grapes

Fairly straightforward forward but depending on the variety you're dealing with you may want to crush and destem, whole bunch press or whole bunch ferment.  Thinner-skinned varieties like Pinot Noir and Gamay suit whole bunch fermentation better than thick-skinned Cabernet or Syrah as the thinner skins have less tannins and therefore can benefit from an additional bit of tannin provided by the stalks.

4. Ferment grapes into wine

A key part of the process and where the magic happens!  Basically, once you have your grape juice in a vessel and the temperature is brought to the appropriate level, lower for whites (14-18 degrees typically) than reds (25-28 degrees typically) to preserve white's delicate aromatic qualities, you add yeast and a little bit of oxygen and the magic begins.  The yeast eats the sugar and in the process converts it to alcohol and carbon dioxide and what's left is known as the lees.  Gross lees from the fermentation process (a bit like a Greek yogurt in texture) and fine lees (as the name suggests much finer and sand like) after racking and settling. Oh and by the way the choice of fermentation vessel is extremely important as well (of course it is!).  Do you want to use concrete, stainless steel, or Oak barrels and if so, new, old, large, small? etc etc.

5. Clarify the wine

You have your fermented wine in a vessel at this point and it's ready to clarify.  How much clarification do you want?  Will you go through cold stabilisation?  'Cold stabbing' the wine means running it through chillers at -4 to -8 degrees or thereabouts which will mean any tartrates in the wine will naturally solidify and fall out.  If you've ever seen what look like grains for sugar or very small fragments of glass in your wine or stuck to the bottom of the cork, this is what they are and are absolutely nothing to worry about, they will do you no harm and are simply removed for cosmetic purposes.  Then you'll have to fine the wine.  Do you want to use a traditional treatment like egg white, or go volanic clay like bentonite?  If you want to make it Vegan friendly you'll not want to use egg whites!

6. Age the wine

Not always necessary and the quicker you get it out the quicker you get paid, but it will depend on where in the world you are.  Think Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, which is out the door as soon as it's in bottle basically compared to a Gran Reserva Rioja, which needs to do 5 years minimum ageing,  3 of which are in barrel and 2 in bottle before release.

7. Bottle the wine

The final stage before release to market is to bottle the wine.  If it's a blend, you'll have a lot of options to choose from, parcel site, grape variety etc and how do these combine with one another to showcase the best of what you've got?  Then you need to choose an appropriate bottle for your product.  If you aren't constrained by appellation rules, i.e. Bordeaux, Burgundy and the bottle shape they dictate, how do you want your wine presented?  Then what closure? Natural cork, synthetic cork, screwcap?  Add the label.  How many different versions of the front and back label do you need to conform to each market's rules and expectations and how are you going to make the bottle stand out on a shelf if it's destined for retail and not become another bottle on the shelf?

Conclusion

As you can see producing wine is a lot more complicated than it may seem with an endless range of options to choose from at each stage of the process.  Wine-making is both a science and an art.  Most people could make a bottle of wine from a bunch of grapes following scientific theory, but whether it would be any good or not would be another matter.  The art comes in with the wine-maker during the blending and selection process and what makes the cut and what doesn't.  Great palates and years of experience go a long way in being able to produce something we all want to buy but it's far from easy.

So the next time you buy a bottle, consider where it comes from, the people that have invested their lives in making it, and the care and attention that has gone into making it for you and it'll open up a whole new level of appreciation of the skills involved in the process.

Until next time, Cheers!