making wine

[CellarRat]

First off, home winemaking IS NOT EASY. I've been in the Fresno State Enology program for 4 years and I still run into problems with home winemaking. There is no recipe for making wine. Luckily, sweet wines are a lot easier to make than table wines. I've made two so far and they came out great.

Make sure you are completely prepared AHEAD of time. You absolutely cannot leave grapes or wine unsealed overnight while you look for equipment. Fruit flies are a bitch and they bring brett. Pick late. Shriveled but clean berries are good for sweet wines. Growers usually don't want them and they're just gonna drop the fruit anyway. Crush (NOT PRESS) your red grapes and throw em in a food grade bin (trash cans work). Add yeast, at this point oxygen is a good thing.

The most important step at this point is stopping fermentation. Since you want a dessert wine, I recommend neutral spirits like everclear. High proof alcohol will kill the yeast so make sure you have around 10% residual sugar. After fermentation, draw off your free run and air lock em in some sort of food grade container. If done properly, what results is a beautiful wine with natural sweetness and around 18% alcohol. Winemaking is God's proof to the world that Murphy's Law is real. Best of luck.