Fermentations: Winemaking - Step One!!

I am so excited to write about my wine making experience that I almost don’t even know where to start!! I think I will break the process up into three separate blogs. Starting this week with step one, then we’ll cover steps two thru four next week, and finish off week three with step five.. bottling!! For now, let's go back to the beginning and to step one!! I first saw the brochure for Fermentations when I was visiting The Sweet Elephant. [You know, the place in Old Town Colorado Springs that I almost totally missed, and where I went to play wine bingo!?] It read “Personalized winemaking & home-brew lessons” by appointment… I was totally intrigued!!

I had no idea what these “lessons” entailed or how long it would take to make a batch of wine. Since we were living in our motorhome, I wasn’t really interested in the “home-brew” lesson part. Plus, we were only going to be in Colorado Springs for the summer, so I only had a couple of months in which to take the lessons and make my own wine. The first thing I did was physically go visit Fermentations, to see if this was a process I could complete in the amount of time we had available. Guess what!? The gal behind the counter said the process only took like 7 to 8 weeks!!

This is how the whole thing worked. You looked through their shop so you could purchase a wine making kit of your choice. It contained all the supplies you need to make a batch of wine. It also includes the space, equipment, storage, and instruction for novice winemakers, [like me] via Fermentations and the lessons they provide!! Easy peasy, right!? You can see from the photo above that I bought a dessert wine kit. [I am still really into the sweet stuff at this point] I needed to choose a wine that could be made in my available timeframe, and I didn’t want to spend too much money in case it turned out to be a flop!! Haha!!

After paying for my wine making kit, I set up my first appointment, and they said to allow 45 minutes for the initial lesson. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go, but basically the lessons included time with an experienced winemaker from Fermentations to “hold my hand” through the process. They made sure that I had what I needed in order to complete the process. Let's fast forward... when I arrived, I went to the workstation they had set up for me. On the table was my wine kit, and an apron. I unpacked everything and read through the instructions. Step One: Mix wine ingredients (premium juice, water & yeast) to begin primary fermentation. How exciting!? 

 We started by siphoning the delicious juice (Cause yes I tasted it… hahaha) into the 1st fermentation jar!! Then we took a large glass mixing/measuring cup, added our water and other ingredients to be dissolved as follows... a package labeled bentonite.. this is an absorbent impure clay that is created from volcanic ash!! Bentonite bonds onto any floating particulates that may cause cloudiness in the wine. Then the yeast packet, and finally the toasted oak!! [It’s sounding pretty tasty already!! LOL] After pouring our mixture of ingredients into the fermentation jar, [This is what you see on the rim of the jar in the photo below] we checked the specific gravity. Whoop, whoop…  it falls within the recommended range!! I gave it a proper stirring, labeled it, and put it on a shelf for it to sit for the next two weeks!!

Who knew there was so much chemistry involved in wine making!? I set up my next appointment for step two and tried to forget about it!! HA!! Typically, dessert and port wines are made in half or demi [demi is the French word for half] sized bottles. They hold around 375 ml’s of wine, while the average bottle of wine holds 750 ml’s. Due to the fact that we had limited space, [living in the motorhome] they agreed to allow me to bottle my wine into 15 average bottles, instead of the 30 half bottles. Wow.. 15 bottles of wine still sounded like a lot of wine to me!!

I soon learned that after sharing, and by sharing I mean the actual opening and drinking of a bottle with most of my wine drinking friends, that it didn’t end up being all that much!! Haha I did also gave a few bottles to same friends for future enjoyment. Maybe the demi bottles would have been the better choice!?

Ok well, this concludes step one of my winemaking experience!! Next week, Wine with Wixy will be back at Fermentations where we will cover the completion of steps two through four!!

Cheers to you my wine loving friends, and TTFN!!