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I started brewing first...but after watching the women folk splash
down $$$ Chard's in amounts reminicent of a tidal wave, Big Dave and
I both decided to pick up some wine kits and give them a try;
In the meantime, while making kit wines...slaving like a dog, I rototilled, dug post holes, sweated, laid in the grass in pain, strained my back, and generally had a fantastic time building a vineyard. Here are a couple of pics: 
As you can see from the above picture, I am using a 3-wire Cordon - Cane training system. This is a simple, common system for both commercial and home trellising. 
The root stalk As the vines grow, I loosely tie the vine to the training stake using landscape/pruning tape. In order to keep growth of the vine concentrated on the roots and stalk during the first two years, I will pinch off any grapes or flowers. For year two, I take 4 shoots on each side of the vine closest to the 1st wire. I'll use a knife and knick off the remaining bugs so only the 8 shoots nearest the first wire sprout. I'll take the two best of these and gently train them down each side of the first wire to form a T. That mean no grapes till year three (boo-hoo). So, for the first two years, I've just kept making kits, gaining experience on yeast choices and propigation, oaking, clarifying and what not. 
The grapes will start to turn from green to red as pigment builds in the skin, and as soon as they do, the birds get all excited about a new source of food. I put up netting to keep the birds and squirrels out of the vineyard. 
Back to Wine Making I have had the most luck with the kits from Vintners Reserve. These have been the most consistent for me so far and are available at most Home Brew stores and all over the web. I have a few wine supply links on this page. The Chardonney and Merlot kits have turned out some very good batches of wine, comparable to most store bought $8 to $15 bottles that I have put them up against. The Cab kits will require you to add powdered Tannin to make up for the concentrate juice not sitting on the grape skins as long as would be normal. Also, adding oak chips during the secondary fermentation will benefit the wines by adding additional complexity. The first step in making wine is to decide what kind of wine you want to make; then go buy the kit. In very real ways, that is much simpler than all-grain brewing. All wine kits ship with dry yeast and more often than not it is Premier Cuvee. For reds, premier cuvee' does well. It doesn't throw ester's like Montrachet at higher temps and it leaves a well-rounded, fruity taste to the wine. At first, using dry yeast that comes with the wine kits is fine. However, as you progress in your understanding of wine making, you'll soon realize that liquid yeast from White Labs or WYeast produce better batches of wine. The liquid yeast impart more soft fruitiness to the wines. I can usually re-use liquid yeast from batch to batch for about 4 batches before ordering new yeast.
Also, pick
up extra toasted oak chips. All varieties will benefit from leaving the chips in during both primary
and secondary fermentation. The figure below shows the necessary equipment to begin making wine.
As you can tell, much to my wife's consternation, I ferment wines in my bathtub. Wines aren't nearly as temperature dependent as beer. Reds tend to favor temps near 72 °F to 80 °F. Whites like it a bit chillier at about 68 °F to 72 °F. That pretty much means that you can ferment wine at room temps. Unlike beer, I use distilled water to dillute the juice concentrate. The concentrated juice has all the minerals necessary for fermentation so the distilled water eliminates introducing off-tastes or upsetting the balance in the juice. Like brewing, it is vitally important to sterilize your equipment. 
I use Iodophore and then rinse everything several times with distilled water. You can also use a Sodium Metabisulfite solution. Rinsing ensures that your sterilization or microbial inhibitor does not introduce off-tastes. 
The kit includes concentrated varietal grape juice, typically french oak chips, bentonite (clay used for clarifying), sodium metabisulfite (microbial inhibitor), potassium sorbate (preservative), and either Isinglass or other fining agent. When I purchase a kit, I also get a bag or two of toasted oak chips for the secondary fermentation and for reds, aging. I also will get an alternative yeast if necessary. 
The process begins by adding about 1 gal of distilled water, aggitating by swirling, and then slowly adding the bentonite. Bentonite will clump very quickly and then be hard to break-up unless there is enough liquid and that liquid is swirling very fast. Next add the contents of the juice foil pack. Rinse the empty pack with 1 gal of water and swish it around in the pack before emptying it into the 7 gal carboy. This will help to ensure you get all of the juice you can. Carefully top up to 5 gallons using distilled water. Perform an OG check using a Hydrometer. For a good wine with an appropriate alcohol content, you need a ("must") with an an OG of 1.092 to 1.102. That will give you a potential of 12.5% to 14.5% alcohol, consistent with what you will find on store shelves. Most kits will tell you to dillute to an OG of 1.080 or so. If you dillute your must that much, you will be left with a very watery, light bodied wine.
If you need to make adjustments to get down to the 1.100 or so level, add additional water in small increments, no more than a pint at a time. After each addition, mix the must very well before performing a specific gravity check. 
Perform a gravity check using a hydrometer. Remember you are looking for a reading of somewhere in in between 1.092 and 1.102, depending on what your expectations are for a final alcohol content. I like my white wines to end up being 13.5% to 14.0% and my reds to be about 12.5% to 13.5%. Make sure you correct for temperature. Hydrometers are calibrated at 60 °F, so if your must temp is higher, the hydrometer will give you a falsely lower reading. 
Once you hit your OG. Put your first addition of oak chips in, gently sprinkle yeast on top of the must and seal with an airlock. During primary fermentation, a krausen will form on top for the first few days. Simply grab the neck of the carboy and swirl to mix it in. If you are making wines by pressing grapes, a distinct cap will form made up of the skins and will have to be punched down. This will settle down over a few days time, and my very best results were acheived by leaving the primary fermentation alone for about 2 to 3 weeks. 
Cover the carboy with a dark tee-shirt. Wines don't like light!!! 
At that point you will want to
("rack-off") the wine to a 5 gallon carboy for secondary fermentation. There are several
indicators of when it is time to rack-off to the secondary: Bubble count is below 1 bubble per second in the air-lock. There is about 1 inch of sediment on the bottom of the primary. The gravity is at or below 1.000. Quite frankly, when I see that the bubble count is low, the milkiness of the must is starting to clear, and there is about a inch on the bottom of the primary, it's time to rack. 
Much to Audrey's relief, when I rack to the secondary 5 gallon carboy, I will store the secondary in the closet. This gives Aud back her bathtub, and it allows the wine to continue to mature in a dark, quiet place. I leave the secondary alone until it falls completely clear, usually about 3 to 4 weeks. I will prepare for bottling by adding sodium metabisulfite and a fining agent such as isinglass. After each addition, I will vigorously stir the wine in the 5 gallon carboy for 2 minutes to drive off CO2. Then I let the wine sit for another week to allow it to clear again. For a white wine, I'll bottle after the wine drops clear. For reds, I'll I rack to a clean carboy, find a similar wine, like a bottle of Blackstone merlot and top up the carboy to within 1" of the air-lock. I let reds sit in the closet for 6 mo. to 1 year before bottling.
When I get the time, I will add picks showing racking and bottling.... |
mostly to save some bucks!!!
Considering I can produce a really good Chardonney at about $2.5 a bottle, that's a heck of
a savings. If you are considering making wines, I recommend a book called
is planted about 14" deep, with the graft
region about 3" above ground. 18 grafts and a posthole digger in Texas clay make
for a great workout... The dogs love to run around the vineyard, so I put up a
chicken-wire ring to protect the little grapevines.
