Vieux Chateau du Roi...

I bottled my Riesling white wine this afternoon. It was the first batch of wine I had ever made and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I'm sampling some of it as I type (didn't have quite enough to fill the 29th bottle). Started a new batch today also, a red wine called Vieux Chateau du Roi. I thought I'd share with you how the process works. It'll take a month from start to finish.
The first thing you need is the grape juice, which can be purchased in a kit like the one above. The kits are handy because they have both the juice and other chemicals you need (bentonite, yeast, potossium metabisulfite, potassium sorbate, fining agent). This particular kit begins with 7.5 liters of juice.First, I poured this juice into the primary fermentor (basically a large, food-grade plastic pail). Next I added the bentonite which helps yeast activity and removes proteins. I added bottle water to a total volume of 23 L which is the standard volume of wine made in winemaking kits in Canada. This stuff is really dark. Since my last batch was white, I'll have to be extra careful not to spatter this stuff. This solution is called "must". It gets stirred up with a big plastic spoon. My house gets cold at night and when we're not home (generally around 15 °C). The optimal temperature for fermentation is 20-25 °C. If the temperature is too below 20 °C it will slow down the yeast activity and temperatures above 30 °C will inactivate the yeast. Too prevent the must from getting to cool, I put a heat belt on it. Next, the yeast was rehydrated in 40 °C water for 15 minutes and then poured into the must. I measured the initial specific gravity (density) using a hydrometer: 1.080. Pure water has a density of about 1. The more sugar that is added, the higher the specific gravity will be. As the yeast converts the sugars into ethanol, the specific gravity will drop below 1. Basically, it helps you measure the progress of fermentation. The higher your initial specific gravity, the higher the potential alcohol content will be.

I put the plastic lid on loosely (to let the carbon dioxide formed during fermentation excape). After a couple of days it will start to release carbon dioxide (you'll be able to hear it, kind of like how you can hear pop fizzing) and the specific gravity will start to drop. Keeping everything clean is very important. Everything that comes into contact with the wine is sterilized with a sodium metabisulfite solution. If you get the wrong bacteria growing in there, you could end up making vinegar instead of ethanol! Oxygen exposure is kept at a minimum thoughout the process to reduce oxidation of the wine which can affect the flavour and colour. This is not a problem during primary fermentation because the carbon dioxide being released by the wine will minimize oxygen exposure. So basically I don't have to touch anything for about a week, but I like to peek at it to see how it looks and smells.