Grape to Glass | Your Ultimate Guide to Wine Drinking

A recent study by The Wine and Spirit Association revealed that 60% of UK adults drink wine - that’s 30 million people!! Whether you’re a complete newbie or a wine aficionado, our three-part guide is sure to have something for you. If you haven’t got the time to take a professional wine tasting course, this handy guide will have you clued up in no time!

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Glossary

How it's Made

• Picking the grapes
• Crushing the grapes
• Fermenting the grapes into wine
• Ageing the wine
• Bottling the wine

Glass Guide

• Red Wine Glasses
• White Wine Glasses

Grape Varieties

• Cabernet Sauvignon
• Merlot
• Syrah (Shiraz)
• Pinot Noir
• Chardonnay
• Sauvignon Blanc
• Riesling
• Sémillon
• Chenin Blanc

Glossary

Racking – The process of siphoning wine from one container to another, intended to remove any sediment left over from the crushing process

Tannin – A textural element which gives wine its dryness

Must – Freshly crushed juice which contains the skins, seeds and stems of the grapes

New World – Wine growing areas outside of the traditional winemaking regions

Mouthfeel – The sensation of wine in the mouth

Punt – Dimple at the bottom of a wine bottle

While methods will vary from vineyard to vineyard depending on the kind of grapes and wine being produced, the winemaking process consist of 5 vine-to-wine steps:

1. Picking the grapes

2. Crushing the grapes

3. Fermenting the grapes into wine

4. Ageing the wine

5. Bottling the wine

Picking the grapes

It’s all in the timing – harvesting the perfect grapes requires a touch of science! Winemakers traditionally harvest white grapes first and move on the red varieties later on in the year, with many choosing traditional hand-picking methods over automated harvesting. Picking the grapes by hand is gentler and preserves the quality of the valuable grapes; this method allows trained pickers to ensure only the best grapes are picked for production. Many wineries choose to harvest at night to take advantage of the cooler temperatures; not only does this benefit the staff - meaning they avoid toiling in the mid-day sun; picking the grapes when cold intensifies the aromas and flavours, giving winemakers more control over the fermentation process. Particularly important for white and rose wines, grapes harvested at cooler temperatures produce a crispness difficult to replicate using other methods.

Crushing the grapes

Once the grapes have been picked, it’s time to extract the juice! The grapes are de-stemmed, usually by machine and quality checked before being crushed. Traditionally, grapes were crushed by foot and celebrated the end of the harvest, although these days the work is mostly completed by machines. Once crushed, the grapes used for white wine are transferred into a press, where the must is extracted and they are separated from their skins; this is a key part of the white winemaking process as it prevents any unwanted colour or tannins leaking into the wine! The extracted juice is transferred into settling tanks before being racked. During the racking process, the must is filtered to ensure any sediment has gone before the fermentation process begins.

Fermenting the grapes

Fermentation is the process which converts the must into the wine we all know and love. The two basic ingredients required for the fermenting process are sugar and yeast. The yeast is added to consume the naturally occurring sugar found in the grapes and produces the alcohol and carbon dioxide which contributes to the taste and smell of the end product. The wine is usually fermented in steel tanks or oak casks, and the vessel in which the wine is fermented has a huge impact on the taste and mouthfeel of the wine! Oak barrels allow the slow ingress of oxygen which provides the wine with a smooth and silky feel. Oaked wines typically have strong vanilla and smoke-like flavours and aromas. During the 1950s, steel barrels revolutionised winemaking, allowing winemakers to produce their product on a larger scale and providing them with greater control over the fermentation process. Steel tanks are considered to be more durable (oak barrels only last 2-3 years!), impart no additional flavour to the wine and limit the amount of wine lost during the fermentation process. Win fermented in steel is typically zesty, refreshing and juicer than its oak aged counterparts. Fermentation continues until all of the sugar is converted into alcohol, and can take anywhere from 10 days to several months to complete.

Ageing the wine

Once fermentation is complete, the freshly made wine is transferred ageing vats. During the ageing process, the acidity in the wine decreases, undesirable substances leftover from fermentation are expelled and complex compounds affecting flavour and aroma are formed – basically ageing is what makes it tasty! Some wines are ready for bottling after just a few months, while some dry reds need ageing for up to two years before they are ready to be bottled.

Bottling the wine

The final step in the winemaking process is the bottling! Once the wine has been sufficiently aged and the bottles sterilised, the wine is prepared for bottling. Wine bottles vary widely based on the kind of wine inside them, the most common being the Bordeaux-style bottle. Originating (perhaps not surprisingly!) from the Bordeaux wine region of France, the Bordeaux is a tall bottle with straight sides, high defined shoulders and a deep punt in the base. The punt is intended to catch any remaining sediment leftover from the winemaking process. These bottles are traditionally dark green when used for red wines, light green for dry whites and clear for sweeter, white wines. Similarly, Burgundy-style bottles are also used for wines produced in other parts of the world, although they were originally used to bottle the Pinot Noir and Chardonnay wines traditionally made in the region. Usually green and wide at the base, Burgundy-style bottles have a shorter neck and gentle sloping sides that create the iconic silhouette synonymous with the region. Alsace or Mosel-style bottles are tall and thin with a long sloping neck, and are nearly always made from green glass. Historically used to bottle wines from the Mosel area of Germany and Alsace in France, today these bottles are used for a wide variety of wines, but most commonly for Riesling and variations upon it. Makers of New World wines use this bottle exclusively for sweet wines, favouring a variety of other shapes for drier wines.

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