For this second club episode, we answer the question: how is wine made? In the previous club episode, we answered the question what is wine? If you have not listened to that episode, I invite you to do so before continuing the series. Before going any further, I also invite you to join the club for free to learn about wine simply and finally enjoy it. Now that you know what wine is, let’s look at how wine is made. Wine is not a drink like any other. The world of wine is full of subtleties that you need to learn in order to enjoy it even more. So, as you might guess, wine is not just a simple grape juice. Before wanting to make wine, you first have to focus on producing beautiful grapes. Growing grapes follows the cycle of the seasons. The seasons set the rhythm of the work in the vineyard. So I will first explain the vine’s cycle. Then we will talk about winemaking. Finally, we will cover blending, ageing and bottling.
How to make wine: the work in the vines
So let’s start with the work in the vines, following the rhythm of the seasons.
Winter
In winter, from November to February, the vine is in a resting phase. During this winter rest period, which we call dormancy, the sap no longer flows in the vine. This is the perfect time to do the pruning. Each vine plant is pruned during this period. This pruning is important because it allows the buds to appear in good conditions.
Spring
Then comes spring. From March to April, the vine gradually wakes up and the sap starts flowing again in the plant. The sap rises in the vine and you see a few droplets appear at the ends of the cuts. This is called weeping. The buds then gradually come out. This development of the buds is called budburst. At the end of spring, the leaves develop on the vines. This is the leafing stage. After that, until June, the flowers start to appear on the vines. This is flowering.
Summer
In summer, the sun and the heat arrive. During this period, the fertilised flowers gradually turn into grape seeds. The formation of these grape seeds is called fruit set. The grapes, still green until now, grow and ripen. They then take on their full red or white colour depending on the grape variety. This moment generally happens in August and is called veraison. Finally, up to the harvest, the vine is in the ripening stage. This means the grapes lose acidity and fill with sugar under the effect of the sun.
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Autumn
Then comes the big moment for all the estates. The end of summer and the month of September mark the start of the harvest. This is the time to pick the grapes. It is a festive period, certainly, but above all an extremely stressful one for all winemakers and a sign of hard work for dozens of people in every vineyard. You have to be quick because the grapes must be picked within a few days, no matter the size of the vineyard. Now that we have harvested grapes, all we have to do is make wine. It may sound simple put like that, but we still have a lot of work to do. So let’s go and discover it.
How to make wine: winemaking
The act of making wine from grapes is called vinification. It varies depending on the type of wine you want. That said, there is a common base for all winemaking. So I will start by talking about red wine winemaking, and we will then cover the winemaking of other types of wine. Note that the methods can vary depending on the region.
Making red wine
So let’s start with red wine. The first step is destemming. Destemming is the separation of the grape from its stalk, which is called the stem. The stem could give the wine a herbaceous taste that you do not want to feel in your glass. Next, it is time for crushing. This means bursting the grapes and letting the juice run out. The seeds and the skin can be kept with the juice. The mixture obtained from crushing is then put into fermentation vats. Alcoholic fermentation begins and lasts 4 to 10 days. It is during this fermentation period that the grape’s sugar turns into alcohol. The pigments spread into the juice to give the wine its colour. It is also the moment when the tannic elements, such as the grape skin or the seeds, develop and give the tannins to the wine. During this period the contents of the vat are mixed regularly. Next, the juice that was in the vat is collected: this is racking. To put it simply, you open a tap at the bottom of a vat and collect the juice. This juice is called free-run wine. You also take care to press the must, that is, all the solid matter that remained in the vat, such as the grape skins. This is pressing. The pressed must gives the press wine, which is inevitably much richer in tannins. It can be blended with the free-run wine in a greater or smaller quantity depending on the choices made by the estate’s oenologist. Finally, red wine undergoes a second fermentation: malolactic fermentation. This reduces the wine’s acidity. In summary, here are the different steps of red wine winemaking:
- Destemming: the grapes are separated from the rest
- Crushing: you obtain the grape juice
- Alcoholic fermentation: the sugar turns into alcohol
- Racking and pressing: you collect the juices from the fermentation
- Malolactic fermentation, which reduces the wine’s acidity
How to make white wine?
For white wine, the process is the same, with one exception. The must is immediately separated from the crushed harvest. So it is only the juice that will ferment, without the solid parts of the grape. This is why the tannins in white wine are absent.
How to make rosé wine?
Let’s move on to rosé wine. I would rather tell you straight away, rosé wine is not a mixture of red wine and white wine. To make rosé wine, red grape varieties are used. There are then two ways of doing it. The first involves making it like a white wine, and therefore immediately separating the juice from the solid elements that give the wine its red colour. Without these elements, the wine will be rosé. The second involves carrying out a saignée (bleeding) in the vat after a short maceration. In other words, you start the maceration as for red wine, but you end it much earlier in order to separate the must from the juice. The action of the pigments is stopped.
How to make sweet wine?
To make sweet wines, like Sauternes, you need grapes rich in sugar. These are harvested late in order to push their ripeness and therefore their sugar content. Some harvests can thus be carried out up until December. You then have to follow the white wine winemaking process.
How to make champagne?
For champagne, the method is different. The juice first undergoes alcoholic fermentation. Next, blending is carried out. For champagne, blending involves bringing together juices from different years and different plots. This is why you rarely see a vintage on a champagne label. Only exceptional years are vintage-dated. Once the blending is done, the juice is bottled with yeast and sugar. It will then undergo a second fermentation, but in the bottle this time. This is what makes it special and this is what gives champagne its bubbles. Dom Pérignon himself is said to have discovered this process.
How to make naturally sweet wines?
Finally, we have to mention the case of naturally sweet wines such as Rivesaltes, Rasteau or Banyuls, to name a few well-known ones. For these wines, alcoholic fermentation is stopped by adding a neutral spirit. The transformation of sugar into alcohol comes to an end because the alcohol level is already high. So a high level of sugar is kept in these wines.
Making wine: blending and ageing
Now that we have covered the production stages of the different wines, we have two more elements to cover: blending and ageing. These are the last two steps for understanding how wine is made. Blending involves bringing together juices obtained from different grape varieties, that is, different types of grape, and from different plots. This step is not compulsory: some wines are single-variety. They therefore do not undergo any blending. Blending is often a collective effort led by the estate’s oenologist. It involves tasting different proposals by varying the presence of this or that grape variety in order to obtain the desired wine. Finally, ageing involves letting the wine mature for a longer or shorter period. The ageing methods and the container used for it vary greatly depending on the region and the estate’s technical choices. For example, ageing in oak barrels gives more woody notes and accentuates the tannins in certain wines. The length of ageing also helps give the wine a different personality. As an example, the vin jaune from the Jura is aged for 6 years and 3 months, while other wines undergo only a few weeks of ageing.
Bottling
Before ending this article on how to make wine, and to be thorough, we have to mention bottling. The wine that has been aged up to now goes into its final container before being put on the market. The wine is then bottled. There are different wine bottle sizes, from the piccola, which holds 20 centilitres of wine, to the Melchizedek, which holds 30 litres of wine, the equivalent of 40 bottles. The most common formats are naturally the classic 75-centilitre bottle and the 1.5-litre magnum. There are also other containers for wine that are growing in popularity, such as the can and the bag-in-box. The wine then reaches our cellars and arrives on our table, to our great delight. Tasting time for us. And there you have it, well done, you now know how wine is made. As I said, wine is a spectacular world. Learning about wine is crucial in order to finally enjoy it fully. So I will see you in the next episode. In the meantime, to continue your efforts to learn about wine, head over to the Wine Makers Show club. You can sign up to the club for free. It is free, it is interesting, and if you ever change your mind, you can unsubscribe whenever you like. So go ahead and sign up to our club to learn about wine. Join the club
