How to make homemade grape wine: step by step

For homemade winemaking you don’t need any special wine making equipment or kits, just some basic wine making instructions that we’ll give you in this guide for beginners!

Step 1: Crushing the grapes

We collect ripe grape early in the morning while from dew-sprinkled vines or in the warm afternoon. You can crush grapes in many ways. In traditional wine-making countries like Moldovia, Georgia and Armenia they have big round hole covered with cement in the middle of the yard. Before winemaking season this hole gets carefully washed, grapes are placed inside and the whole family with friends and relatives crush the ripe berries with bare feet.

If you make your wine at home, them the process can be simplified: put berries in a clean container. Do not wash them, but make sure that leaves and small branches do not get inside. After the grape is crushed, place the container covered with gauze on a sunny terrace or balcony to let the mixture sit for 2 days. This is necessary to heat the mixture and to activate wine yeast.

Step 2: Active Fermentation

As soon as the mixture starts to produce slight sour smell it should be poured to the bottles with narrow neck. Every bottle should be filled not more then for ¾ as otherwise grape juice will overflow. To begin the fermentation process we need to cork the bottles, but to leave the possibility for carbon dioxide to ooze out. For these purposes we need to prepare a special cork: drill a hole in a firm long cork, put a rubber hose in the hole and cover the upper part with something sticky that won’t let the air come throw (can be plasticine or something similar). Cork the bottle and put the other end of the hose into a bottle with fresh water.

What if the fermentation doesn’t go right?

Sometimes if the weather is chilly the fermentation process doesn’t start. There’s a special trick to solve the problem: pour out of the bottle 1-1.5 litres of grape juice, add a little bit of sugar, heat it till 40 degrees and then return back to the bottle and mix with the rest of juice. Fermentation will surely start now!

Now we keep an eye on the mixture: as soon as you notice froth on the top – the active fermentation process began. After a week or two the pulp will rise to the top and become more thick and light-coloured. Murky liquid on the bottom of the bottle is a grape juice.

Step 3: First discharge

Prepare new bottle, put the hose deep inside the bottle with pulp and juice (till the bottom) and the other end – to the empty bottle. Draw off the juice to the empty bottle. Usually from 2 bottles with pulp and juice you get only one with pure juice (without pulp, peel and pips).
Now you can taste it. If the liquid is sour – add some 150-200 grams of sugar for each litre of juice and start the active fermentation process again. This time you can put the bottles inside, no need for them to be on a sunny terrace anymore. Sometimes grape juice can be too tart and it’s necessary to add 1-1.5 litres of water. Still try to avoid that.

Step 4: “Secondary” wine

What should you do with pulp that stayed in the bottle after you removed the juice? You have to options: either to throw it away as a waste or to make a secondary wine. Sometimes secondary wine is even more exquisite and mild then the real one. To make a secondary wine out of used pulp you need to prepare the amount of sweet water equal to the grape juice that was removed from this bottle. Proportions are 200-300 grams of sugar for each litre of water. Mix the pulp with water and start the active fermentation process over again (now the process will take much more time). As soon as pulp became thick, light and reached the bottleneck – remove it and leave the juice for fermentation.

Step 5: Wine aging

Here comes the crucial moment: when a second fermentation stage starts, the sediment start separating. The more often we remove it, the clearer becomes homebrew wine.

Usually if you put wine for aging in September, it should be ready by New Years eve. During this period you should take out the sediment from two up to 4 times. If you see that wine is still not ready, but at the same time fermentation process is over – refresh it. Just pour it from one bottle to another for few times to let it fill with oxygen.

When wine is ready it’s time for the final step – pasteurization.

Step 6: Pasteurization

To avoid wine turning sour, the process of fermentation should be stopped and wine should be preserved. Prepare champagne, cider or any dark glass bottles – wash and dry them. Fill them with wine and carefully cork. Now wrap them with thick linen and put in a big pan with hot water. Put a thermometer in one of the bottle and as soon as the temperature reaches 60 degrees – count 20 minutes and remove them from water. Put all bottles on one side (horizontally) and store them in dark cool place.

Such home made wines are truly unique and can’t be compared to any wine available in the shops.