How to Make Homemade Wine

Making homemade wine is such a satisfying hobby - I can think of few more enjoyable things than cracking open a bottle of your own wine!

Oh, except perhaps one...

Seeing my friends drink it!

There are 6 basic steps in winemaking, but I'm going to cover just one here. There's loads of info at How to Make Homemade Wine - check it out!

Strictly, must refers to the starting material of grape wine - the whole grape mashed up, skins and all.

However, you can make wine from just about anything! And that includes ready squeezed fruit juices. Therefore, we're going to be a bit loose with the word must.

As I said, just about anything can go into your must - even herbs and spices! The composition of the must determines the resultant boquet of the wine.

However, there are a couple of things you need to bear in mind when you're making your wine from anything other than grapes.

The first is acidity. Grapes, lucky for vintners, contain just the right amount of acid to make the resultant wine taste right - too little acid and your wine will taste flimsy, too little acid and it'll be like sucking a lemon!

However, fruits, fruit juices, and anything else you might want to use in your must will likely not be so perfect.

To measure acidity we use an acid titration kit - the use of this is fairly self-explanatory, and will be included with the kit. We're aiming for an acid level of 0.50-0.60% for dark wines, and 0.55-0.65 for lighter wines.

To increase acidity we can use acid blend, and to reduce it we can use potassium bicarbonate or calcium carbonate.

We also need to make sure that there is the right amount of sugar in our must. Again, believe it or not, grapes contain just the right amount.

However, we might need to make some changes. We can use a hydrometer to measure the specific gravity of our must, which will tell us how much sugar is present. We are aiming for around 1.090-1.095.

Grapes also contain something called tannins, which give wine complexity and texture.

Yes, again, your must may well lack the right amount of tannins. Consider adding tannins to your must to improve the palette - just how much, however, is up to you and your palette! It's often a matter of trial and error, and it's something you'll likely pick up as you learn more about how to make homemade wine.