How do you make wine?

Wine is made from grapes. The main steps in winemaking after the grape harvest are pressing, fermentation, ageing, fining and bottling. The decisive process in winemaking is fermentation, in which yeast converts the sugar from the grapes into alcohol and carbon dioxide. The fundamental difference in the production of white and red wine is that fermentation takes place after pressing(must fermentation) for white wine and before pressing(mash fermentation) for red wine.

The ripe grapes are harvested in the vineyard (harvest) and then first lightly crushed. This produces the mash: the mixture of juice, pulp, skins and seeds. The colouring agents of the grapes are in the skins - the pulp is also light in red grapes - and the juice of the grapes begins to release the colouring agents from the skins during maceration.

To make white wine (from white grapes) or Rosé wine (from red grapes), the mash is then pressed after a short standing time (a few hours). This produces the must (the pressed juice of the grapes) and the marc (the solid residues such as skins, seeds and stems). To produce white wine from red grapes, the grapes are pressed immediately and without any maceration time (so that no colouring substances are released from the skins). The must is then fermented. The yeast required for this is either added(pure yeast) or natural yeasts are used; fermentation then starts automatically. Fermentation not only produces alcohol, but is also responsible for the majority of the wine's flavours.

To make red wine (from red grapes) or Orange wine (from white grapes), the entire mash is fermented. This not only releases the colouring substances from the grape skins, but alsotannins, which are found in the skins and seeds. This is why red wines and orange wines have tannins that taste slightly bitter and can have an astringent effect in the mouth. Fermentation also takes place either with pure yeasts or with natural yeasts, and only then is the wine pressed. The resulting young wine is separated from the marc.

After fermentation (and subsequent pressing in the case of red wine and orange wine), the young wine is first filtered to remove the yeast residue from fermentation. This is followed by ageing: the young wine is stored for a certain period of time (weeks, months, years) in stainless steel tanks or wooden barrels(large wooden barrels, barriques). During this time, the flavour and, depending on the ageing period, the texture change again.

At the end of the ageing period, the wine is clarified and fined to stabilise it before it is bottled.

These general steps in winemaking can be broken down into numerous small intermediate steps. These are explained in detail in the following articles, categorised by type of wine:

How is white wine made?
How is red wine made?
How is rosé wine made?
How is orange wine made?

One more note: It is not possible within the scope of this description to give anything like instructions on how to make wine. Only individual steps can be described here in more or less general terms. To learn how to make wine, there are specific training courses(winemaker, wine technologist) and degree programmes(viticulture and oenology) as well as - independently of these - textbooks and the possibility of completing an internship in a winery.