The primary five stages of wine making process in best Sonoma wineries

Wine making process is around for almost thousand years. Wine making is not only one of the arts but also science is there. It is a kind of the natural process requires little of human help but each maker used different techniques to prepare. Generally there are 5 basic steps of a wine making process such as harvesting, crushing and pressing, then fermentation and clarification and last aging and bottling.

Sonoma Valley Wineries

Sonoma Valley Wineries

Harvesting

It is the first step to do in wine making process and the important part to ensure delicious wine. The Grapes are the fruit used for making wine as all know, but it is necessary to have right acid, tannins, and ester to have natural and stable wine. The tannins are called textural elements which add bitterness, dryness and astringency in the wine.

This is the moment grapes are picked up to after determining an acidity, flavor and sweetness to the wine. To determine the harvesting period little touch of science is needed with old-fashioned tasting. Harvesting is done manually or mechanically. The wine makers more prefer hand because machines are tight on grapes and vineyard. Then grapes are taken to the best Sonoma wineries, there they will be sorted as bunches and ripe or rotten grapes get removed.

 Crushing and Pressing

After sorting out grapes, they are made ready to de-stem and crushing. Earlier crushing uses to be a festival of love for men and women but now people prefer machines to do it. Mechanical pressing stomp the grapes which are must. It means they get fresh juice containing skin, seed, and solid particles.

For white wine, grapes need to be crushed and pressed quickly to separate the white liquid from its skin, seed and solids. It is done to prevent unwanted color or tannins getting mixed with the wine. While red wine is left on the skin to get required color, flavor and additional tannins.

Fermentation

The next step is fermentation; it starts naturally within 6 to 12 hours with the aid of yeast from the air. However, some wine makers add cultured yeast also to ensure required consistency and to predict necessary end result.

This fermentation will continue until all sugar gets converted into required alcohol and till dry wine is made. For getting sweet wine, the winemakers will stop to process before all sugar get converted. It can take 10 days to some months.

Clarification

After fermentation, then clarification is next in which solid particles like dead yeast, tannin, and other proteins are removed from the wine. That wine gets racked into a vessel like barrel then wine is clarified through filtering or fining.

Aging and Bottling

This is the final stage in the wine making process. Winemaker will have two options, one to bottle it or keep it for additional aging. Wine further aging is possible in barrels, bottles or stainless steel tank. As it ages, wine gets more exposure to oxygen decreasing tannin and give the wine optimal fruitiness. After that wine is bottled and cork up.