How wine is made?

How wine is made?

• Use only fully ripe wine to make wine, healthy fruit.

• Squeeze the juice immediately after grinding the fruit or else – for dark fruit – carry out preliminary fermentation in the pulp.

• Do not leave the pulp uncovered for too long, to prevent the growth of harmful microorganisms.

• Determine the weight of the must using the Ochsle balance: usable fruit wine should show an Ochsle 60 °.

• Determine the acidity: the total acid content of a good fruit wine should be 6-8 g / litr.

• Must with too low sugar content sweetens up, adding crystal sugar. To increase the weight of the must by 1 ° Ochsle, you need to 1 add a liter 2,6 g of sugar.

• It is only sweetened then, when the must is too acidic (much above 9 g / litr).

• Acidity is increased by blending with acidic fruit juice or by adding 80% lactic acid.

• Reduction of acidity is achieved by correcting the "wet" taste (adding sugar water), or by the addition of calcium carbonate; to lower acidity by 1 g na 1 liter, need 0,7 g of calcium carbonate.

• Wine can be considered natural, if neither must the weight of the must have been corrected in it, nor the acid content. Most fruit wines, however, require correction, so that they can be drunk at all. For home use, it is allowed to adjust and sweeten until reaching heavy dessert wines; however, they cannot be sold.

• Glass balloons are used for fermentation (do 50 liters) and plastic containers (from 100 liters) or wooden barrels (from 20 liters).

• The utensils must be clean and free from mold. They have to be constructed that way, so that they can be closed with a fermentation tube, so that the carbon dioxide generated in the fermentation process can escape to the outside, while air could not get in.

• Room temperature, where fermentation takes place, should be 15 – 20°C.

• The basic condition for "pure" alcoholic fermentation is to prevent the development of wild yeast and harmful bacterial strains; for this, pure wine yeast is added.

• The fermentation vessel is only filled to 4/5, so that the fermenting juice can expand its volume.

• In warm weather and when the juice or pulp is not entirely perfect, sulfurization can be carried out, by adding potassium metabisulfite in the amount 5- 10 g na 100 liters.

• Fermentation is a process of transformation and purification, it should therefore proceed smoothly.

• Fermentation is complete, when carbon dioxide stops escaping, and the hydrometer reads 0 ° Ochsle. After a short period of peace, the first dressing should be performed.

• After the first dressing, measure the individual values ​​again and make a note of them.

• The fermentation vessel is filled to the plug and closed with a fermentation tube.

• Young wine must be cold aged: optimal temperature 8 -10°C. The wine continues to mature, becomes bright and clear.

• Then it's time for the second blowjob.

• Further dressings can be made later or the wine can be bottled. The wine also matures in the bottle, approaching the optimal moment of maturity, and when it crosses it, begins to gradually depreciate. Depending on the type, vintage, alcohol and acid content, this takes years, and even decades with very heavy dessert wines. Weak wines must be drunk in the first year, even if they have been bottled.