How to Make the Most Vivacious of Alcohols, Wine

By Anthony Magliulo

Throughout the ages, people have partaken in sampling this veritable nectar of the gods. Wine has been an ever present facet of society through much of our past. It is used in religious ceremonies, social gatherings, and there are even gatherings that center on the tasting and sampling different kinds of wine. It is the perfect complement to many a dinner meal. And then there’s the sheer variety of it. You may walk into many wine and liquor stores and find a huge selection of wines, all of them having a different and unique composition.

But, what if you would like to make your own?

“There’s a process to it, and it takes a lot of patience,” says Ciro Magliulo, who opened and was the first proprietor of Ciro’s Restaurant in Lake Luzerne, NY. Magliulo said his father used to make his own wine. “Once, a batch of wine my father made exploded in the living room, and we had to paint the whole room,” he said. From then on they always stored it outside.

Now, there are many different ways of making wine, but the basics of it remain the same. To start, choose a recipe and a fruit. Then wash your equipment and be sure that it is sanitary. Next, extract the flavor. This is done through boiling, chopping, crushing, pressing, or soaking (It depends on the fruit). After that, blend the different additives. Some common ones are sugar, wine yeast, campden, and pectic enzyme. The forth step is transferring the wine to secondary fermentation containers. Once the initial fermentation process has stopped, pour the wine through a funnel into the containers while straining out the pulp. Next, rack the wine: this involves siphoning the wine off into a different container to free it from any large particles. This is usually done several times. When the wine is clear enough and the fermentation process is over, bottle it. The wine should be kept upright for the first three days, and then put it on its side and aged for at least 6 months (white wine) to a year (red wine).

To get the equipment and supplies, unless you live nearby a wine making specialty shop, search and shop online. There is a plethora of internet sites that sell equipment, supplies, and recipe books that contain instructions on how to make many different kinds of wine. Some of them even have recipes right on the site. Many sites also sell kits that will contain almost everything needed to make a few batches of wine. They could easily be looked up in any search engine, but here are a few sites listed for convenience: eckraus howtomakehomemadewine easy-wine