Lesson 1. Introductory
The desire of amateur winemakers from “non-southern regions” to create natural homemade wine from their grapes often leads to disappointment: you still have to add sugar to the juice, you still have to reduce the acidity by adding water. And this already suggests that the wine is not natural. And the taste, no matter what grapes the wine is made from, still turns out to be Isabella, be it white or red. For good wine, it is advisable to use wine grape varieties, but growing them in our conditions is quite difficult and expensive. Our variety, Isabella, is the most unsuitable for winemaking: the berries contain a lot of mucus, the juice yield is low, and the skins contain a lot of acid. In addition, Isabella grape varieties are considered harmful to humans and are prohibited for wine production by the European Wine Code. It is believed that the juice from Isabella grapes becomes harmless only after it is pasteurized.
For the preparation of natural dry wine with a strength of 11-12% vol. (alcohol content in %), the sugar content in grape juice must be at least 20%. And if we want to get semi-dry, semi-sweet or sweet wine, then the sugar content in the juice should be even higher - within 25-30%. How can we grow grapes with such a sugar content? These grapes ripen only in the south.
And since we cannot get natural wine from our grapes, but only with the addition of sugar and water, then maybe it makes sense to pay attention to other fruits and berries that grow in our region? In many cases, they contain no less, and sometimes even more, useful substances, have excellent taste and bear fruit well in our conditions.
If, for example, we take a berry such as black currant, which is recognized by many experts as the healthiest berry, then in many respects it is not inferior to grapes, and in some it is superior. How about honeysuckle, sea buckthorn, dogwood, gumi, chokeberry, serviceberry, white currant, red currant, raspberry, strawberry? This is a storehouse of useful substances, smells and tastes. At the same time, grapes that grow in our climatic conditions — does not have a distinct smell or taste, except perhaps Isabella.
By the way, many professional winemakers are proud of creating grape wines with the taste and smell of various fruits and berries. Does this mean anything?
I am in no way against grapes, on the contrary, I am for it with both hands. In the south it is by far the number one berry. And even more so for wine. And in terms of yield, and in terms of taste, and in terms of “usefulness”, and in terms of adaptability to winemaking. It’s not for nothing that the word Grapes begins with the word Wine. But we are talking about regions where there are few sunny days, not enough heat, and plenty of rain.
I will not list all the fruits and berries from which wine can be made. You can cook it from almost anything. The following basic requirements must be met:
- The sugar content in fruit juice should be at least 20-25%.
- The acidity of the juice should not exceed 0.7%.
Well, for example, we can add sugar by buying it in a store, but what about acidity? It turns out that acidity can be reduced by simply diluting the sour juice with water. Yes, yes, exactly water, which should be added to the juice at the stage of preparing the wine. And no amount of sugar will help here - only water. Sugar, of course, also participates in diluting the juice. One kilogram of sugar added to juice increases its volume by 0.6 liters. But can you imagine how much sugar needs to be added to the juice in order to dilute the juice with an acidity that is 3-4, or even 5 times higher than desired? We don't have wine, but syrup. So, dilute the sour juice with water.
Note. To achieve the required acidity of the juice, you can also dilute more sour juice with less sour one.
And here we get an interesting relationship: the more sour the fruits, the less of them are needed to produce the same amount of wine, since more water has to be added to the juice. It turns out that this is even beneficial. But you shouldn’t get carried away with diluting juice with water, since watery wine is the same as diluted beer – hardly anyone will like it. Everything here should be exactly like in a pharmacy - no more and no less.
But in any case, we are, of course, not talking about unripe, sour fruits, but about fully ripened, high-quality fruits. Moreover, you must immediately accept for yourself as a rule - wine is made not from waste, but from the best, ripened fruits.
Another necessary condition for making wine is the presence of wine yeast, which converts the sugar in the wort (juice or a mixture of juice with sugar and water) into alcohol. Wild wine yeast is always present on fruits. The main thing is not to “wash” the fruits too much after picking - rinse with cold water and that’s enough. Personally, after picking and weighing, I pour cold water on the berries, right in the bucket in which I collected them, 5-10 centimeters above the berries, mix them well and let them sit for a couple of minutes. All the spider bugs, bad berries and debris float up and I remove them with a slotted spoon. Then I repeat the procedure of mixing and collecting garbage a couple of times and then drain the water. That's it, the fruits are ready for processing. So we smoothly moved on to the technology of making wine. But I feel that it is still early - it is necessary to familiarize yourself with the basic concepts and terms.
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