The winemaking process
Winemaking has been around for thousands of years. In its basic form, wine production is a natural process that requires very little human intervention. Mother Nature provides everything which is needed to make wine; it is up to humans to elaborate, improve, or destroy what nature has provided, to which anyone with extensive wine tasting experience can attest.
There are six basic stages or steps to making wine: harvesting, extraction, fermentation, pressurization and filtration, and then aging and bottling. Of course, the most important part will be enjoying the wine.
Undeniably, one can find endless eccentricities and variations along the way. In fact, it is the variants and little eccentricities at any point in the process that make life interesting. They also make each wine unique and ultimately contribute to the greatness or discomfiture of any wine.
To learn more about the winemaking process read more below.
The winemaking process demystified
Making wine has been an art that has existed for thousands of years. Yet it is also a science. Winemaking is a natural process that requires little human intervention, but each winemaker guides the process through different techniques.
Did you know?
Global wine production for 2015 was 28,395,00 litres out of a total of 63 countries.
The top 5 countries producing wine are Italy, France, Spain, United States and Argentina whereas the top 5 countries consuming wine are United States, France, Italy, Germany and China.
Did you know?
Currently 95 775 hectares of vines producing wine grapes are under cultivation in South Africa over an area some 800 kilometres in length.
White varieties constitute 55.2% of the plantings for wine, with Chenin Blanc comprising 18.5% of the total. Red-wine varieties account for 44.8% of the national vineyard. The most widely planted red variety is Cabernet Sauvignon, accounting for 11.1% of the total. Shiraz accounts for 10.4%, while Merlot accounts for 5.8% and Pinotage, which is indigenous to South Africa, represents 7.4%. The local wine industry continues to re-align its vineyard offering in line with international trends.
Harvest Grapes
Harvesting or picking is certainly the first step in the actual winemaking process. Without fruit there would be no wine, and no fruit other than grapes can produce annually a reliable amount of sugar to yield sufficient alcohol to preserve the resulting beverage, nor have other fruits the requisite acids, esters and tannins to make natural, stable wine on a consistent basis.
Extract juice
Crushing the whole clusters of fresh ripe grapes is traditionally the next step in the winemaking process. Today, mechanical crushers perform the time-honoured tradition of stomping the grapes into what is commonly referred to as must. For thousands of years, it was men and women who performed the harvest dance in barrels and presses that began grape juice's magical transformation from concentrated sunlight and water held together in clusters of fruit to the most mystical of all beverages - wine.
Fermentation
Fermentation is indeed the magic at play in the making of wine. If left to its own devices must or juice will begin fermenting naturally within 6-12 hours with the aid of wild yeasts in the air. In very clean, well-established wineries and vineyards this natural fermentation is a welcome phenomenon. However, for a variety of reasons, many winemakers prefer to intervene at this stage by inoculating the natural must. This means they will kill the wild and sometimes unpredictable natural yeasts and then introduce a strain of yeast of personal choosing to more readily predict the result.
Pressing
By using mechanical presses, much of the romance and ritual has departed this stage of making wine, but one need not lament this too long due to the immense sanitary gain that mechanical pressing brings to winemaking. Mechanical pressing has also improved the quality and longevity of wine, while reducing the winemaker's need for preservatives.
Filtration
Filtration can be done with everything from a course filter that catches only large solids to a sterile filter pad that strips wine of all life. Fining occurs when substances are added to a wine to clarify them. Often, winemakers will add egg whites, clay, or other compounds to wine that will help precipitate dead yeast cells and other solids out of a wine. These substances adhere to the unwanted solids and force them to the bottom of the tank. The clarified wine is then racked into another vessel, where it is ready for bottling or further aging.
Aging
Further aging can be done in bottle, stainless steel or ceramic tanks, large wooden ovals, or small barrels, commonly called barriques. The choices and techniques employed in this final stage of the process are nearly endless, as are the end results.
Bottling
After clarification and filtration, the winemaker has the choice of bottling a wine immediately, or he or she can give a wine additional aging.
Consumption
This is where you enjoy your organic NSA wine with your favourite food pairing.