The Complete Guide to Making Your Own Wine at Home: Everything You Need to Know Explained Simply by John N. Peragine Jr

Author:John N. Peragine Jr.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: wine, homemade, distillation, ingredients, recipes, winery, home, tools
Publisher: Atlantic Publishing
Published: 2013-08-12T00:00:00+00:00

White Wines

There is not much difference between making a white wine and red wine. The greatest difference in the process occurs in the beginning. Instead of fermenting on the skins, the skins are pressed just after they are crushed. The skins never touch the fermenting must. This gives white wine a different character because it contains less tannin, and it does not have the red ruby color.

Otherwise, the process is exactly the same.

Common white wine varietals:

• Albariño/Alvarinho

• Chardonnay

• Chenin Blanc

• Gewürtztraminer

• Muscat

• Pinot Blanc

• Pinot Gris/Pinot Grigio

• Riesling

• Sauvignon Blanc

• Sémillon

• Viognier

You can try some of these varietals on your own to get some practice making wine. The following is a recipe for a Chardonnay. This recipe can be converted to make just about any other white grape wine.

Chardonnay Wine

Yield 5 gallons (19L)

OG = 1.09 FG = 1.014 ABV = 10%

Original Brix (21.10) - Final Brix (3.10) = 18 x 0.55 = 10% ABV

60 to 75 lbs. Chardonnay grapes

½ tsp. pectic enzyme

17 Campden tablets

1 packet of Red Star Montrachet yeast

3 tsp. yeast nutrient

3 tsp. oak mar (flavor), or 2 cups oak chips, or 3 oak staves (available at your wine making supplier)

1 package of malolactic culture

Standard winemaking equipment

Crusher (or you may crush the grapes by hand or foot)

Fruit press

Instructions:

1. Clean and sanitize everything. Crush the gapes after removing bugs, debris, and bad clusters. Add pectic enzyme to the grapes. Let sit for two hours.

2. Press the grapes (with fruit press). Add five Campden tablets to grape juice. Let sit 12 hours.

3. Take readings of the acid and sugar content and make any necessary adjustments. Make a yeast starter by adding yeast to warm water and allowing it to sit for 30 minutes. Pitch yeast and add nutrient and oak mar or other oak sources to the juice. Rock the fermenter to mix and aerate.

4. Cover top of fermenter with a trash bag. Make sure there is headspace for fermentation of about 20 percent. After three days, wine should be vigorously fermenting. Allow it to ferment two more weeks. After fermentation looks like it has slowed down, rack into carboy.

5. Add malolactic culture, following the instructions on the packet.

6. Take hydrometer/refractometer readings, and when the reading is below 1.000 or 1 Brix, then fermentation should be complete. When it reaches level, add five more Campden tablets to the must and rack.

7. Place the fermenter in a cool place for three to six months. Continue to rack every month until it is clear. During each racking, add three more Campden tablets.

8. If needed, you can use other clarifiers such as Isinglass to clear the wine.

9. When wine is clear and acceptable to your taste, then pour into bottles.

10. Allow the wine to age for another three months before drinking.

Aging

After the readings on the hydrometer or refractometer are stable, you may choose to skip to bottling. However, aging a wine will make a smooth, mellow, and complex flavor. It does take some willpower. Many home winemakers want to try to drink a wine as quickly as possible.

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