Wine! "Make enough to go around"

New recipes, Wineintro and tips Country wine               Storing and ageing
Fruit Juice Wine recipes see Fruit Juice Wines & More
The low cost to top quality wine Start here with Barolo
Stuck fermentation and how to restart them see Stuck Fermentation
A question of degrees Some typical wine drinking temperatures (°C).

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My aim is wine making is quality. The most expensive shop bought wine is expensive because of the labour involved, yet in home brewing the better kits tend to be easier. I use the best quality kits I can find and always make sure they have not added too many artificial ingredients. With wine you need to know when to drink it. White wines age quite quickly whereas reds take longer. Country reds usually take even longer. The problem with a few kit manufactures is that they are so obsessed with saying it can be drunk in x days that they forget to let us know when the wine will be at its best. This has changed for many kits today, which focus on today's more discerning wine drinkers. Wine drinkers have become a lot more sophisticated and so have the homebrew kits.

 

 

Great wine at the

lowest cost possible

With quality & cost in mind look for the best quality kits. Kits that have pure grape juice of a variety you know and love. Beaverdale is the choice for me. They have a large variety of kits which cover an impressive range of wines. They use the real grape juice from the actual region making this an ideal kit. I choose Barolo grape variety, as this is a "yummy" wine. The woody wine kits have chips of oak which gives them an authentic hint of oak cask.   Paying a little extra for quality kits is worth it.

 

If you are lucky enough to have a local homebrew shops, then take advantage of it they are great places to discuss what is best for you and to seek advice on brewing.

I like the Beaverdale kits from my local home brew shop. With a Beaverdale kits you get the actual grape variety so you have the quality, now to achieve the low cost goal. This means we are going to cut equipment costs to the minimum.
* 1 x 4.5 litre fermented (glass demijohn)
* Demijohn cork & fermentation lock
* 6 empty wine bottles (Free)
* Plastic wine stoppers
* Thermometer (non mercury) (this is optional)
* Hydrometer (this is optional)
* Chem pro (this is recommended but optional)  [I now use a steam cleaner to avoid any chemicals]

That is it for the equipment.

The kit has all the sugar you need in it so there is no weighing of sugar.
Clean the demijohn with Chem-pro (oops that was optional). So here is my alternative.
Sterilizing a Glass demijohn with no chemicals. Wash out with plenty of warm (not hot) water. Note these jars are not designed for heat and will break is subjected to a sudden rise in heat. What I do is dry & drain the demijohn then put the jar in the oven set at 30C for 5 minutes the raise it to 50C for 10 minutes and then raise it to 70C for a few minutes. Because I raise the temperature slowly and keep it low my jar have not shattered yet. I guess there is a risk here and no manufacturer would recommend this approach. I turn the oven off and leave the jar in the oven to cool down till it’s warm to touch. Bacteria do not like dry heat so this method is especially effective.

Now you have a sterile fermented and water (tap water or water from a water filter)
1) Add yeast to a cup of water at 40C-50C (oops no thermometer) well this is easy. Add boiling water to just under the half full mark then top up with cold. Add yeast pack wait 5 minutes and stir
2) Add the grape juice from the kit to the demijohn.
3 Add the cold water. The temperature of the final quantity should be 25C this is tricky without a thermometer. I added a cup full of boiling water carefully to the existing cold water. This all depends on the temperature of your cold water. If you not sure just add cold water.
4) Insert cork with attached fermentation lock.
5) Set Temperature control to 23-27 degrees C (oops no fancy temperature control gadget) so just wrap the jar with two tea towels instead.
As I am doing this in mid summer temperature control is not an issue. Yeast produce heat during fermentation. Wrap the jar in a couple of tea towels. This should help keep in the heat the yeast produces and they will regulate the temperature themselves.

The room temperature should not exceed 25C and should not be less than 16C

Let it ferment, Bottle it. Drink when mature. I am planning to have mine for the New Year 2000 (Y2K wine) it will of course be ready well before that but good wine appreciate a good maturing process.

Note: The kit has clear instruction which are easy to follow. I have made it seem more complicated than it really is.

Update
Having left the wine for as long as I can bear I have uncorked a bottle and as always the first glass goes to my wife, assuming I think it smells OK.
My wife works in catering and is especially good a jugging wines.

First she checks the nose and from this she felt it smelt like a good red but a little young. The wine will benefit from a bit more ageing.
Taste she felt was a good social red and certainly good enough to drink with friends and will be much better once aged a little more.

I did the nose test and yes it smelt like a red.
The taste for me was wonderful. I have produced more than my share of "Suitable for cooking" class wine and it is pleasing that this really is better that the reds I have bought in the shop. It’s quite sweet and very Moorish. The taste is very interesting and lasts. I love it. The fact that it can do with a bit more ageing is a plus as this is the difference between a good red and a cheap one. Good reds take a while to mature.

My wife gave this the thumbs up.

Wine corking tip

Avoid cork inserters that rely on a bashing devices (Flogger). Trust me this is not a good way to insert a cork into a bottle. After much bashing and flogging the flipping cork submits and looks as if it had a hard day. I purchased a lever based cork inserter and never looked back. The lever based cork inserter is simple and easy every time. 
If your budget does not extend to the lever cork inserter then better to use the plastic hand insert corks and drink within 3-6 months. 

Rough red wine tip

For my rough red wine I'm going to turn it into mulled wine. See (Mulled wine)

Click here for Parsnip wine recipes

Storing and Ageing of fine wine

Storing your wine

There is an odd feature called bottle sickness which has been observation by wine makers that no matter how well aged a wine is if it is transferred to a new bottle this bottle must age at least a month before opening or the taste is not quite right. I am not sure of the chemistry here but this is a rule I keep to.

Storing, maturing and volume
I would have thought that keeping my wine in a bottle or demijohn makes little difference but this is not true. The larger volume of the demijohn (4.5 litre 1 gallon) improves ageing and is preferable to just ageing in the bottle. I now mimic the wine makers but on a smaller scale. A wine maker that is going to age a red for 3 years will age the first 2 years in a vat and then 1 year in the bottle. If I plan to age a red for 1 year then the first 8 months will age in the Demy-John and the final 4 months in the bottle. I guess the volume helps smooth out temperature changes and it is said that random collisions of the compounds that help ageing are more likely in larger vessels. There are lots of mysteries in wine making.

Sealing, and storing
If you are keeping your wine for a year or less then you really do not need real cork in fact as long as the seal is air tight it’s ok. The only wine that should be stored on its side is still wine sealed with a cork. This keeps the cork moist and stops it drying out letting in too much air and even spoiling bacteria. Bottles sealed by other air tight methods such as plastic corks, crown cap ... should be kept upright and champagne with a cork can also be kept upright. I love corks and will always seal my wine with corks even if I cannot prove that it is that beneficial for wine less than 3 years old. Beyond 3 years in the same bottle and the cork is beneficial allowing in an important and yet chemically almost insignificant amount of oxygen. Corks that are intended to last many years must be of excellent quality and longer than the standard inch to prevent it failing to keep its air tight seal..

Storing conditions for fine wine
I take great care brewing Barolo with the Nebbiolo grape juice from the right side of the Barolo region of Italy and so when I store this I really want thing to be as perfect as possible. I care for these as much as my few but very select aged wines. Ideal storage would be an unheated basement but I do not have this. I could get a high end temperature control unit but I do not have this. I have been very fortunate in having the pantry dedicated to my wine and this pantry somehow always keeps cool throughout the year.

Fine wine storage table

The ageing of fine wines:
Sitting next to my carefully home made oaky Barolo sits my 1997 Barolo from my favourite wine merchant. Looking at the above table of conditions its clear to me that wine does not travel well. How can you be sure the van from Italy can control the temperature and avoid vibrations. My home made wine however travels by hand about 20 feet in its entire life. What happens to the wine when it is left to age and why is the Barolo at its best at year 5 or more. The answer is down to some very slow and complex chemical reactions. This can be generalized as alcohol and acid being converted to esters and phenols becoming more complex compounds, slowly resulting in a more subtle, complex and aromatic drink.

The chemistry of the process of wine ageing

Phenols + Phenols  More complex Phenols
Alcohol + Acid  Aldehydes Esters
Esters + Esters  delicate and more complex esters

Phenols (e.g. Tannin)
Tannin and other phenols are found in the skin of the grape and to some degree tannin is obtained from the oak during oak ageing. Tannin is also in country wines in tea, raisins, elderberries and to varying degrees in fruit. Phenols like tannin give the wine its colour and have a somewhat a bitter taste. The long slow process of ageing allows the phenols to combine together to form more and more complex compounds. As they join together the colour changes from red through dark reds and finally to a coffee red brown. Beyond this the complexity of the compound is such that is too large to remain dissolved in  the wine and it precipitates out as a brownish deposit (as with very old wine). The taste changes as well due to the initial bitter taste of the tannin being smoothed out by this process. Very high tannin wines are unpleasant to drink young but they usually age very well and after 5 years in the case of my Barolo they are very pleasant. I have some elderberry wine which is extremely high in tannin and at present is only drinkable if accompanied by a strong cheese such as Danish blue in  a few years I reckon it will have aged well and will be a bit more subtle.

Esters.
Esters give fine wines their lovely delicate aromas. I first came across esters in chemistry where we made some unsubtle pear drop flavour. Esters are the result of the marriage of alcohol and acids during an oxidizing reaction. This oxidization takes minimal amounts of oxygen and will happily takes place in sealed bottles. A cork is a very good air tight seal letting in such a minimal, almost negligible, amount of oxygen that it matches the incredibly slow nature of the reaction taking place.

Alcohol + Acid Aldehydes  Esters
Esters + Esters  delicate and more complex esters

The pear drop ester in chemistry class took minutes to form, in wine this reaction must be done very slowly, gradually and evenly for the productions of the correct balance of complex and delicate esters present in aged fine wines. When this is done too quickly (e.g. storage temperature to high) then the esters do not become as complex and the balanced of esters is noticeably wrong to the trained pallet. The esters instead quickly form less subtly simpler esters but not as simple and crude as the pear drop esters in chemistry.

How do you know how long to age a fine wine?

This is tricky but the main thing that tells you is the quantities of Tannin, alcohol and acidity of the young wine.

Low tannin will not keep for long as in most white wines
Very high tannin will have to age before it is drinkable
High alcohol and high tannin as with certain port, results in  a drink that can mature over a period of 50 years.
Low acid will not form the aged aroma but this is less likely as the fermentation process needs acid conditions.

Colour is the best sign of correct ageing. This is why I often keep my reds in clear bottles. Sure I keep these bottles in the dark all the time but there is no real harm in briefly taking the bottle out and looking at the colour through the clear bottle much as a wine taster does with his glass. Alas people are so used to seeing red wine in coloured bottles that it look strange seeing red wine in clear bottles. People then think I know nothing about wine and quietly inform me of my error. You see coloured bottles are to keep light out when the wine is in the shop, but my home-made wine never leave the house and only see light for the briefest moment when I inspect it or when it is being served.

Some typical wine drinking temperatures (°C).

These figures are a rough guide only, they should only be regarded as “typical” as there are many exceptions. I have collated the information form various sources & cannot vouch for their accuracy or whether a degree or three deviation makes any discernable difference. As these figures are based on dry wines, deduct 2 degrees for sweet & 1 degree for medium wines.