How Red Wine is Made

Out of the many types of wine available, red wine is one of the best. There are various types and flavors of red wine. Most types are made the same way though. This smooth creation is made from black grapes. You see, that is how red wine gets its color, by drawing it out of the skin of the black grapes.

One of the first steps in making red wine is putting the picked grapes into a crusher. The crusher then begins to softly break the skins of the grapes. Whether or not the stalks will be used or discarded at this point all depends on what kind of a wine is being made, and the tannin that is required. The next step is to put the grapes in a vat in order to ferment with the skins. This process can take a very long time, possibly taking many weeks in order to be completed. The higher the temperature in the fermentation vat, the more color and tannin the grapes will give off.

If you wanted a softer wine, you would put the whole grapes into a sealed fermentation vat. Carbon dioxide then becomes trapped in the vats because they are sealed. This puts the grapes under pressure, fermenting them much quicker, closer to a couple of days rather then a couple of weeks. However, you need to remember that the color and tannin are determined by how long the grapes were fermented. If the process of fermenting them took longer, you can usually be assured that the resulting wine will have more color and flavor.

After the grapes are fermented they will then go through a press, in order to be crushed. The result is a tannin wine. Every once in a while a tannin wine will be added to a free run wine, as to add some additional structure to the wine mix. After that process is completed, the press and the vat of wine are mixed together and moved into large tanks or barrels in order to be fermented a second time. This second time will take much longer then the first. This process is so that the quality and the taste of the wine can be improved.

Every red wine sits in those vats or barrels for at least a year before being removed. There are some red wines that will sit for several years in those vats in order to bring out more and more flavor over time. After the wine is removed from the barrels, but before it is bottled, it will be fine turned with the whites of eggs in order to suspend the yeast and other solids in wines downwards. The wine will then be racked and filtered, and then finally bottled. After that step the wine can be shipped and sold.

The amount of time that the wine spends in the bottle is also very important. However, this amount of time does not need to be as great as the second fermentation process. The longer the wine sits, the more expensive they will be. The process of wine making is very time consuming, but also very rewarding. The more patient the wine maker is, the more money he can make with his wine, and the better the quality of the wine will be.

As you can see, wine making is almost an art. Starting at the beginning, a wine maker might have difficulty keeping in mind that a great wine needs time. However, if he can keep his patients, he will end up with a wine that many people will wish to buy. The longer it sits, the better it is. For more information on red wines, you should visit WineIntro.