There are thousands of factors and steps to be performed for making wine. Here in summary are the general techniques for both red and white wines. Understand, wine maker's style adds another thousand or so steps to the process. Here is the 30,000 foot view of wine making.Obviously, everything starts with the grape. Making sure you have good, healthy vines is key to producing highly concentrated sugar levels within the grapes. To do this, most growers will prune the leafs to get the most sunlight in contact the grapes. However in places where there is too much that it burn the grapes, growers will keep vine leafs pruned accordingly to shade the grapes from sun damage. Most growers also keep their vineyards packed 4 vines in a 4sqft blocks. This stresses the vines to fight for water consumption and nutrients in the rough soil creating the high sugar levels desired.
During the fall timeframe, it's time to harvest. This can be accomplished by either hand picking the grape bunches or using today's technology - gentle tractors automating the process of picking grapes. Once the grapes have been picked and brought back to the winery, it's time to get your feet wet!
The bunches of grapes will then go into a crusher where the juice & skins are separated from the stems and any other foreign substances. The grape stems, seeds, and leaves add high tannic flavors to the wine making it taste astringent.The next step depends on the grape variety. Red wines are taken straight to fermentation; juice and must (broken grape skins) together. White wines are then moved into a press separating the juice from the grape skins.
The press typically consists of a stainless steel cylinder with an inflatable rubber bladder inside. The must is poured inside the cylinder and the bladder is inflated with air. The bladder squeezes the skins against the side of the cylinder and forces the juices out. The juices are collected and sent to the fermentation tanks.
The massive fermentation tanks are temperature controlled. This is where the fermentation takes place - they can be either large oak tanks or stainless steel. Yeasts and sugars are added to start this process depending upon the grape variety. Different yeasts and sugars invoke different reactions to take place creating unique flavors. Fermentation can take anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks. The winemaker constantly monitors this process assuring all is going off without a hitch.When this process concludes, red wines are sent to the press to separate the must from the juice. This is also very important to filter the juice from the yeasts. If yeast is not removed, fermentation continues in the bottle ruining your wine! Oh NO! Get that yeast out of there!!
Once everything is finished, the juice is moved into stainless steel tanks or barrels for aging. Oak barrels contribute to added flavors in wines. In most cases, red wine goes through another fermentation process called malolactic fermentation. Bacteria is added to the juice to convert the malic acid into lactic acid - adding a softer acid in turn adding new flavors to the wine.Once the winemaker deems the wine is ready, it's time to bottle and cork 'em! Some winemakers like to let the bottles fill with wine now and sit for some time letting the wine get past bottle-shock and soften just a bit more. It's then released for us to enjoy!
But what about Sparkling wines?
The process for making sparkling wines is similar up to a point. When bottling, extra yeast and sugar is added. The bottles are capped to allow for a second round of fermentation, which lasts for about a year. The wine is aged for one or more years after the second fermentation. Then the yeast is removed through riddling.
Riddling is when the bottle is placed upside-down and rotated one-eighth of a turn every day. The dead yeast cells settle into the neck of the bottle which is then frozen in an ice/salt water bath and the cork is removed. The pressure forces the frozen plug of dead yeast cells out of the bottle. This is called disgorging. The bottle is corked and wired to secure the high pressure inside. 