Homemade Wine: A Tour of the Process

Preliminary Be sure to wash your barrels out very well, especially if it has old pink/red sludge that is the leftover fermentation	Preliminary Uncrate the grapes and be sure they are not rotted or have flies on them, if so, spray them with the hose.
1) Breakfast You will need your energy. Espresso, bagels, maybe even some of the white stuff (anisette but not recomended).	2) Mixing The red and white grapes are mixed and prepared for the grinder
3) Grinder The grapes are put through a grinder where the juice and skins are captured and put into the press	4) Wine Press After the grinder, grapes are gently put into the press. You can see the juice oozing out already.
5) Wine Press Grapes along with the skins are gently evened out, made as level as possible to prepare for the next step.	6) Wine Press A side veiw of the press where the skins and grapes are kept for squeezing.
7) The Press is Closed The press is closed with two big heavy wooden halves that come in direct contact with the grapes	8) The Crank is Put in Place More wooden blocks and a crank is put in place to squeeze the grapes through the press.
9) The Guys Get Ready All of these brothers get ready to crank the mechanism which will squeeze the grapes through the press	10) Juice from the Press The juice drains out from a bottom spout into a stainless steel tub.
11) Barrells Ready For Standby	12) Barrells Are Filled
13) Meanwhile, Back at the Press Once the juice coms to a mere trickle and stops flowing, the press is re-opened.	14) Press is Re-Opened You can see the grapes are fully compacted and compressed, but there is still juice left.
15) Stirred, Not Shaken The grapes are loosened up, re-mixed and "fluffed up" in order to close the press again and continue to extract every single drop of juice since the grapes are pretty expensive, even if just for juice. I figured out, it costs about $5 at least per bottle at cost.	16) Final Steps Once all the juice has been pressed out of the grapes, the barrels are filled and read to be sealed.  They will be rolled to a cool, dry place where they will ferment for several months, usually from October until April.

Wine: The Final Product

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