Making wine is, like making love, is good for the soul.  Like making love, it can be romantic, can be messy, can have good or bad results and can take a great deal of effort.  Unlike making love, it is often a rather technical subject.  

Most of the time, with a small production, the winemakers are sanitizing (cleaning) equipment, which is tedious and boring.  The only interesting thing that can happen during sanitation is to nail someone with a high-pressure spray of 180 degree water, which is the bad kind of interesting.  In fact, not much interesting happens in wine production that is good.  The most exciting thing I’ve ever seen at a winery, was a tank full of hundreds of gallons of chenin blanc explode - again, the bad kind of interesting.

Still, I plan to report on some of the steps in the winemaking process.  Understanding the process of production is one of the best ways to understand wine in general.  After all, the wine production process is the second most important influence upon a wine’s character.  It is also the second influence chronologically.  The influences on a wine, in order of chronology and degree are: viticulture (growing the wine); vinification (producing the wine); storage and transportation of the finished product, whether long-term or short-term; and service (what glass you are drinking from, what you just ate, etc.)

 Most of the work for this harvest season is behind me, but I’ll try to do this chronologically.  The next article will be about procuring and selecting grapes.  

Posted under Viticulture and Enology