Making Country Fruit and Veg Wines

Basically, the yeast turns the sugar (usually found in the fruit within the juice you are fermenting, although more may need to be added, especially for vegetable wines) into alcohol and carbon dioxide.

The carbon dioxide is released to the atmosphere by a one way trap, and as the alcohol is infused into the juice, it becomes wine.

Once the yeast has produced the alcohol for your wine, then when it dies (through being overworked - the cells have only a short life-span - or by being killed off by too much heat or cold, or again by too much alcohol in the juice/wine), it falls to the bottom of your wine fermenting vessel.

A good winemake provides the ideal conditions for the yeast to survive and breed, allowing it to do its work of producing the alcohol within the wine quite naturally.

The wine is siphoned off the sediment during the wine-making process before clearing agents are added to speed up the settling process so that a sparkling wine is produced.

These added ingredients can be omitted if you want to do things totally naturally, but the clearing process of your new wine can sometimes take months without this treatment.

There are really only two ways to go about wine making.

The first, for convenience, or perhaps for the total novice to give it a trial, is to use one of the many kits that are available -- as recommended here with the top link on the left -- containing fruit concentrates along with everything else needed, other than water, sugar and a fermenting vessel and trap.

There is absolutely no need to be crushing your fruit or veg and very little effort is involved to set these kits in motion.

Simply follow the supplied instructions and you can be drinking a very reasonable wine in three or four weeks, although by maturing it for a few months your wine will improve, much to your benefit.

The second is a little more demanding, but far more pleasurable.

It involves using fresh fruit for your wine making, which must be cleaned and crushed, the sugar levels must be checked to be sure a certain alcohol level is reached within your wine - it could be too sweet you know, as too much alcohol actually kills off the yeast, which means the wine will be over sweet.

Another point that must be checked is the acidity level, as different fruits contain varying acid levels and too much acidity in your wine will simply make it undrinkable (too harsh), whilst too little will make it bland, flat, tasteless almost.

As far as maturing (storing) your wine goes, this can vary greatly. The lighter white wines, generally speaking, can and should be drunk within six months of production (a few months is the best time, if it lasts that long), whereas heavier reds need time to meld the tannins from the grape or fruit skins within the wine, and that way mature, and can need a year, three years, ten years, ???

It varies, but the longer a deep red wine is left, then the better it becomes, and it seems such a shame to have to open the bottle just to try it, doesn't it?