How To Make Homemade Wine
Have you ever tasted a wine so vile that you think to yourself, "I could make a better wine than this!” If so, you 
are certainly not alone. Making homemade wine is surprisingly easy, as it has been done for thousands of years
already! Whether you want to make a special wine for the holidays, or just to start your own wine label in your basement, once you understand the basics, you're well on your way to an exciting and very rewarding hobby where you can not only enjoy by yourself, but you can enjoy with your friends as well!
The first steps:
The first step to making homemade wine is to decide what sort of flavour you are after. The vast majority of wine made today uses grapes, but sourcing proper wine grapes in the right amount may prove difficult. Have you ever gone to your local fruit shop and found Cabernet Sauvignon grapes for sale? Probably not, because they certainly don't taste very nice as a table grape! If you live in an area where wine grapes may be difficult to find, does this mean you're out of luck? Absolutely not! The only requirement you need for this is a source of carbohydrate and sugar, as this is what our yeast will feed on and produce alcohol. The flavour of the wine will depend almost entirely on whatever fruit you use. Why not use other types of sweet fruit, such as peaches? Strawberries? Apples? All of these can produce great flavoured wine and are surprisingly easy to make. Why not try a combination of fruits to make a wine that is totally unique ! Your options are virtually unlimited!
The next step is to provide an environment to place the crushed fruit juice into. Now, not any container can be used, but it needs to be clean and contaminate free. Why is this important? Well, besides the obvious hygiene implications, the yeast that you will be using will be very susceptible to attack from bacteria that can not only destroy your yeast, but can turn your juice/wine mixture into a very sour and potentially dangerous drink to consume. You want a container that will allow the yeast to do all the hard work for you without any outside interference!
Once this is found, you need to source your yeast. The yeast required for making your own homemade wine is specific to wine. Some people get confused and think the yeast used in breadmaking can be substituted. The ending results will tell them they made a bad decision! Therefore, get yeast specific for wine making. It is generally quite cheap and well worth the effort.
There comes a time when the yeast has done its work and slowly starts to die. When this happens, sediment will gradually appear at the bottom of your container. This is time for the next step, which is called racking. Here, the wine is siphoned (minus the sediment on the bottom) into another container and allows the wine to mature. This container is then placed in a cool and dark (very important!) place (a room, a corner in the basement, etc) and allowed to mature. In history, oak barrels were used as some of the oak flavouring would impart itself to the wine. Today, you can actually purchase wood chips that replicate this process much quicker for little cost.
The next step may actually be the hardest, and that's the bottling process. If you are going to put your wine into bottles, you'll need to somehow get the bottles and clean them thoroughly, as bacteria inside a dirty bottle can turn a fine wine into vinegar, and you'll never know until you open it. If you are hosting a party, this is extremely embarrassing to happen! Once you bottle, you'll also need to apply a cork to it. It may sound difficult, but it's not as difficult as you might think.
In all, the process for making your own homemade wine is rather laborious, but it can be so rewarding as well. The above steps only give you a small insight into what it takes. However, here at TheWineSpot.org, our goal is to keep you fully updated and informed of all the latest news, reviews and helpful articles relating to making your own homemade wine. We've even arranged for sponsors and advertisers that specialise in homemade winemaking techniques to place ads on our site for you to learn more. There are also an expanding list of helpful articles below that will explain homemade winemaking tips and techniques in much greater detail that will help and assist you a lot! So why not take some time to explore our site for all the information and support you'll need and get ready to start making your burgeoning wine industry.