WINEMAKING

A fascinating craft

IF you are toying with the idea of trying your hand at winemaking, delay no longer. Go

right ahead! By so doing you will be joining the thousands of happy folk who, in recent years,

have discovered this intriguing and rewarding hobby. It is, indeed, a pastime which truly "brings

its own rewards," for there can be few pleasures to equal that of being able to offer a friend, and

enjoy with him, a glass of one's own wine.

In post-war years there has been an astonishing revival of home winemaking in Britain;

wine, it is true, has been made here for centuries, but sugar scarcity during World War II and lack

of opportunity debarred many from taking up the pastime, and it was left to the few to keep our

craft alive. Now, however, it is attracting the interest of thousands, and scientific developments

and the spread of wine-making knowledge have made it possible for anyone to produce a

palatable wine in their own home.

There is absolutely no restriction upon how much wine you make as long as it is entirely

for your own consumption, but not a drop of it must be sold, or you will be in trouble with the

law. Nor must you distil, a practice which is both dangerous in that alcohols which are not safely

potable may be produced, and illegal, carrying very heavy penalties. You may also brew at home

as much duty-free beer as you like, but not a drop of it must be sold, since no duty has been paid

upon it.

What you will need
DO not, at the outset, buy a lot of expensive equipment: it is better to start making wine
with what you have—you probably have in your kitchen already some of the essentials—and
then to acquire the rest by stages as the necessity arises. For a start you will undoubtedly need
some kind of boiler, and if you can lay your hands on one that will hold three to five gallons it
will prove ideal. Failing that, you can "make do" with a one-gallon or one-and-a-half-gallon
saucepan.
Avoid containers and utensils of iron, brass and copper, which may be affected by acid
and impart hazes and flavours to your wine; use only boilers of aluminium or sound
—unchipped—enamel ware.
You will also need a large vessel in which to do your soaking, or mashing, and one of
three to five gallons is ideal. The most commonly used nowadays is a plastic dustbin, since it is
cheap, easy to clean and store, and light to handle, and when it splits or is useless for winemaking
it can start doing duty as a dustbin! Alternatively you can use an earthenware crock of some sort.
Tall, cylindrical ones are the most convenient, since they are easier to cover and take up
less floor space than the "bread-pan" variety. They should be hard salt-glazed, since lead glaze
can have poisonous results. True, it is rarely encountered on domestic vessels nowadays but one
does occasionally come across it on very old ones, or on those of Middle Eastern origin, so this
warning needs to be issued! Salt glaze is hard, but lead glaze is soft, and can be dented with the
thumbnail. You probably already have a polythene bucket, and will find this extremely useful for
small quantities; polythene vessels are excellent for winemaking.

Also obtain several one-gallon glass jars for fermenting—those with "ear" handles are the
most popular—and some rubber bungs and corks to fit. These jars can often be obtained cheaply
from grocers, cafes, or hairdressers, for they are used for fruit squash and chemicals in bulk. On
no account omit to buy or make as many fermentation traps (see separate chapter) as you are
likely to need, for they are indeed the winemaker's best friend.
You will also find it useful to collect ½ -gallon bottles (Winchesters) and a supply of
white wine bottles—NOT squash or sauce bottles, please!—and corks or stoppers to fit. It is a
false economy to use old corks, which may infect your wine; always use new corks, and soak
them in a sterilising solution before insertion. Alternatively, buy some of the new plastic stoppers
which can be used over and over again, after sterilising by boiling water.
You will find a funnel, a really large polythene one, most useful, and it is worth obtaining
some nylon sieves or material for straining purposes. Do not forget to obtain, too, a supply of
Campden tablets (ordinary fruit-preserving tablets) which have many uses in winemaking, and a
rubber or polyvinyl tube for siphoning the wine off the yeast deposit. A colander, scales, a
wooden spoon, and measuring jugs you will already have in your kitchen.

Refinements
THESE are the bare essentials, but undoubtedly as you progress in winemaking you will
add other pieces of desirable equipment—a thermometer, a hydrometer for calculating the
strength of your wine, glass tubing for taking samples, small funnels, casks, stone jars, tie-on
labels for jars and stick-on labels for bottles, a corking device, a cork borer, jelly bags for
straining, a bottle-cleaning brush, and perhaps a small press or one of the quite inexpensive juice
extractors now obtainable which can do so very much to remove the "cookery" from winemaking
and make it that more pleasurable. You may even go to the length of wanting to be entirely sure
of accuracy, so much so that you will need some acid measuring equipment. But there is no need
to bother about all this at the outset. That is the beauty of winemaking, you can tackle it as you
please, either in comparatively simple fashion with the help of recipes, or by going the whole hog
and delving more fully into its scientific side, making up country wines to suit your own taste in
the light of your experience.
Cleanliness
COMPLETE cleanliness is most important to the wine-maker; all his vessels, bottles and
equipment must be not only visually clean but chemically clean. Airborne yeasts and vinegar
bacteria (see: The Vinegar Fly) can only be kept at bay by constant vigilance, and the simplest
answer to the problem is to make up a sterilising solution.
Dissolve two Campden tablets (ordinary fruit-preserving tablets, which are sodium
metabisulphite and will give you the sulphur dioxide you need) and a saltspoon of citric acid in a
pint of water.
Make up a quantity of this: use it to sterilise your bottles and equipment, but note that it
must be kept in tightly-corked bottles or it will deteriorate. Use it to rinse all your equipment
before and after use, and also to sterilise your fermenting vessels. A small quantity can be used to
do many jars and bottles by pouring it from one to the other, corking, rolling and shaking each
one in turn so that all parts of the interior are moistened. Wipe round the neck of the bottle with
cottonwool dipped in the solution.
This is a much quicker, simpler (and safer) method than using boiling water or "baking in
the oven," as some books recommend.
One-gallon jars and Winchesters can safely be stored and kept sterile if half an inch of the
solution is left in the bottom of each, and they are tightly corked.
If you cannot obtain Campden tablets, make up instead a stock solution of potassium (or
sodium) metabisulphite (K2S2O2) by crushing 5 oz. of the crystals in warm water and making the
quantity up to 1 gallon. Use as follows:—
For sterilising corks, barrels, bottles and apparatus:
8 Fluid oz. of stock solution, plus ¼ oz. citric acid, made up to 1 gallon with water;
To purify the must before fermentation:
½ fl. oz. of stock solution per gallon of must;
To sterilise completely a most or Juice:
1 ½ fl. oz. per gallon of must.
To prevent fermentation in hot weather double that quantity might be needed.


What wine is
TRUE wine is the product of the grape, we are often reminded, but any winemaker of
experience will assure you that we have no cause to feel in any way ashamed of the "country
wines" which can be produced from our native fruits, berries and flowers. Many of these sound
wines, robust or delicate according to character, dry or sweet according to one's taste, are truly
wines in their own right, quite capable of standing comparison with many which can be obtained
commercially. You may find this difficult to believe, but, when you have produced what you
think is a good wine, compare it with a commercial wine of similar type, and we guarantee you
will be pleasantly surprised.
And once one understands the basic principles, it is by no means difficult to make wine at
home. True, the more you make, the more discerning and critical your palate will become, and
the more you will find yourself seeking to capture in your own wines those elusive qualities
which go to make a great wine. Even the complete beginner, however, can by following a recipe
produce a sound and satisfying wine—often without knowing how or why! It is, however,
infinitely better to understand the principles of the craft.
Our country wines, one might say, have four main ingredients initially: (1) Yeast,
(2) Sugar, (3) Flavouring and (4) Water. There are others which play their parts, notably acids,
tannin, and substances which nourish the yeast, but for simplicity's sake we will ignore them for
the moment, and deal with them later. Time, the time required for maturation, also plays an
important part.
Of these main ingredients undoubtedly the most important is YEAST. Yeast is a minute
living organism which brings about the fermentation, and if the fermentation is to be successful
the yeast must be given ideal conditions in which to work. Those conditions are found in a
sugary, slightly acid solution such as a fruit juice, when certain other yeast nutrients are present
and when the temperature is favourable, say 65° to 75° F, (18-24° C.).
Fermentation
THE alcohol which we seek as an ingredient of our wine is a by-product of the yeast's
process of self-reproduction.
When the yeast is put into a sugary solution, it begins to multiply vigorously, and in the
complex chemical processes which ensue, the sugar is converted roughly half to alcohol by
weight and half to carbon dioxide—the babbles in your beer, wine, cider or champagne.
It is an encouraging thought that for every bubble you see in your wine there is an equal
weight of alcohol! The fermentation will be in two stages, but there is no distinct dividing line.
The first, the aerobic ("with air") fermentation, will be comparatively vigorous, perhaps with
some froth, but may last only five or six days. The wine will then settle down to the secondary,
anaerobic ("without air") ferment, which will be much quieter and which towards the end may be
barely discernible. This may last two, three or four months, or even longer.
Temperature plays an important part. Above 100 deg. F. (38 deg. C.) the yeast will
certainly be killed; at too low a temperature it will ferment only very slowly, if at all. A
fermentation should be started off at about 70 deg. F. (21 deg. C.), the secondary fermentation
should be at about 60 deg. F. (16 deg. C), and the finished wine should be stored at 50 deg. to 55
deg. F. (10-13 deg. C). So the temperatures are easy to remember—70, 60, 50 F. (or 20, 15, 10
C.). A slow, quiet fermentation usually produces better wine than a fast, over-vigorous and short
one, and there is no need to be fussy within 5 degrees F.
During the secondary fermentation it is wise to employ a device called a fermentation
trap, or air lock, which both cuts off the air supply to the yeast and protects your wine from
bacterial infection, of which more later.
As the fermentation proceeds, so the alcohol content increases, until finally it reaches a
concentration (usually about 16-17% alcohol by volume) which is such as to inhibit the yeast,
preventing any further activity. Any sugar still left in the wine then remains only as a sweetening
agent. Once the fermentation is finished the wine will not normally become any stronger no
matter how long it is kept, although it will undoubtedly mellow with maturity. So discount all the
stories you hear on the lines: ". . . and this wine was 40 years old; it had become as strong as
whisky!"
The vinegar fly
THE worst possible mishap which can befall a winemaker is to have his wine at one stage
or another turn to vinegar (from the French vinaigre: "sour wine"), which it can quite easily do if
vinegar bacteria are allowed access to it. These bacteria are, like yeasts, present everywhere about
us, but are sometimes introduced to the wine by that obnoxious carrier, the vinegar fly. This tiny
fly, which appears as if by magic around any fermenting liquor or fruit, is the wine-maker's
biggest enemy; it must at all costs be kept from your wine. If it gains access the liquor, instead of
turning to alcohol, will turn to vinegar, and you will have the sad task of pouring it down the
drain or using it for cooking, for it will be quite irreclaimable.
The wine can be attacked at any stage, and that is why you must cover the first ferment
closely with a thick cloth. The principal danger, however, occurs not so much then, when the
ferment is vigorous, as during the slow, quiet secondary fermentation. Vinegar flies are drawn to
it as if by magic.