Wine, Beer and Spirits Part 4 Making Wine from Grapes - Out of The Vineyard and Into Fermentation The harvest begins when the vineyard manger says, "Do it." Like a great army of ants descending to devourer a grasshopper, the machinery of people and equipment consume as quickly as they can the area to be picked with as little damage to the fruit as possible. With short curved knifes or special designed picking machines this army moves up and down the rows of vines taking only the best clusters. Quickly these cluster are moved to the wine crusher, which separates the solids of stems, seeds and skins from the juice. Sixty to seventy percent of the juice is released at this time and is known as free-run, which may be set aside to make a special product. This crusher looks like a giant corkscrew turning horizontally in place separating the juice from the grape. Grapes destined to make red wine will keep most of their skins while grapes destined to make white wine have their skins removed. All of this product get sucked up or carted into the winery for fermentation.
The fermentation process will be dictated by the winemaker. Although fermentation of grape juice is a natural process it is here that the winemaker puts a personal stamp of style, techniques and art to produce a finished product called wine. At this stage the juice is not wine. The hardest working workers on the planet now take over. Yeast attack and consume the sugars of the grape juice. These can be natural or man made special designed yeasts. The yeast consume the sugars which is converted to alcohol and carbon dioxide. The fermentation processes takes approximately 72 to 96 hours and is done in large vats either wood or stainless steel depending on the art of the winemaker. Often times you will see the juice in the red juice vats having the juice pumped over the grape skins to give color and extra tanning for the skins to the grape juice. Where ever you go in the winery there is a strong smell of grapes, yeast and juice. Sometimes you can get a strong aroma of grape alcohol. As you look around even with the great activity you get a sense of cleanliness; cleaner than a hospital. Clean is king here. Any errant material can ruin the great effort.
When the winemaker feels that a particular vat of fermenting juice has reached the desired alcohol level, color and what the winemaker says, "It's right," the fermentation process is stopped and now the juice has become wine. The wine is removed to stainless steel vats. The scientist Louis Pasteur long ago establishe that yeast are agents of fermentation and that this yeast agent could be controlled. He understood that warmth encourages the process. Too much heat and the yeast will die causing the fermentation to be "stuck". This is a great disaster. A nightmare for the winemaker. With the development of stainless steel and refrigeration of cool water jacketed vat, the winemaker could control the temperature of the wine thus slowing down the wine making process. In the case of white and sweet wines this slower process can take 2 to 3 weeks to achieve a more fresh fruit character white wine.
When the fermentation process is completed, the wine is young and astringent. The wine has not yet developed its full character. There is a whole process of filtering and fining at different stages of the wine process. How much and when is an art and is a decision the winemaker decides. Some filtering is to clarify the wine others are to polish the wine, making the wine more brilliantly clear. Some wines are bottled "as is" and will have unfiltered on the label. Most wines today are filtered except some of the higher quality wines. These young wines may be racked, put into oak barrels or left in stainless steel vats for months in case of white wine and years in the case of red wines. Each process will deliver a different character to the wine. Wines may be blended or separated out as from a special vineyard, picking or date. The winemaker determines how to get the company or standard character of wine that the public has come to accept. When the winemaker says, "It's wine," the wine goes into sterile bottles or plastic bags; get boxed and shipped from foreign countries or local national areas; to your local store. You purchase your choice of wine and bring you new found food home. You introduce it to your family and friends. Everyone accepts their glass of sunshine nectar from the gods and the little old winemaker. We all toast and wish each other Happy Health and Happiness.
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