White Wine Making

“Drink to me with thine eyes, and I will pledge with mine; or leave a kiss but in the cup and I will not look for wine” is a line from a famous poem.  However, for the wine connoisseur, the kiss needs to be really powerful to give up the wine and the competition for the kiss becomes even more challenging if the wine happens to be white wine.

White wine is associated with words like harmony and balance which itself set the mind swimming with desire and that’s the power of a sip of the golden yellow colored liquid with less than 1% sugar content.  Life doesn’t get better than this, does it?!

White Wine making is centuries old and over the years white wine making has grown into a lucrative business model. The good news is that wine making is a simple and easy process, which is probably why a lot of people make wine at home regularly.

White wine making requires you to use white grapes instead of red ones.  White grapes, like white wine, are not really white in color; they can be shades of light yellow or pale greenish yellow, and when fermented, these grapes produce white wine.

Some white wines are called `dry’ wines and what this really means is that there is an absence of sugar in the wine.  In fact, the secret behind white wine is the process of fermentation which occurs by yeast blending with the sugar in the fruit and not by adding extra sugar.  .

White Wine Making Process:

The first step involves identifying white grapes and tracking their harvest times. Once the grapes are ready for harvest, they need to be manually plucked.

These grapes are then crushed using a gadget called a Stemmer.  As the name indicates, the Stemmer separates the stems from the crushed fruit, ensuring minimal residue.

The crushed grapes are then transferred into large urns or containers and kept in cool storage places.  Basements and cellars of building are ideal as they have limited sunlight and remain cool.  Yeast is added to hasten the fermenting process. The yeast heats up the sugar in the grapes converting it into wine.

Pumping the floating skin and other objects and pushing them to the bottom will ensure that clear wine rises to the top.

At some time during the aging process, transferring or racking the wine from one container to another will ensure that residual matter is distilled out and the wine becomes cleaner.

Fining and filtering are the last few steps to ensure wine purity and soon after this the wine is ready to be bottled.  Wine at this stage will be a golden yellow in color and is ready to be sipped and twirled around your tongue.

Making white wine is a simple process. White wine can produce white wines which are as good as Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc or Sauvignon Blanc over time.  All that is needed is a love for wine!