Making Wine from Grapes in your garden - a Guide
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 19 hours ago
Making Wine from Grapes feels like the ultimate for someone like me who loves growing, brewing and making things. I wanted to make wine from grapes from when I started winemaking, and was a bit surprised when I looked around the internet to find so few grape wine recipes. It turns out that is because the process is the thing that needs the most explanation. The ingredients will largely depend on the grapes, their colour, sugar content and what you're trying to achieve.
So in this guide I will outline what you need to know as well as the ingredients you ideally include and the equipment you need for Making Wine from Grapes. If you don't need all that information and you just want to get going, I've outlined the method here in a separate post.
This may all seem like a lot of information and you landed here looking for a simple recipe. The reality is that, whilst making wine from garden grapes can often be people's first venture into winemaking, grape wine is slightly more complex to make than many other wines. That is largely to do with the grape juice, which can vary hugely from grape to grape, or even harvest to harvest.
Making Wine From Grapes - A Guide
Virtually all the equipment I describe in the process up to when the wine is transferred
into a demijohn is included in an Almost Off Grid Making Wine From Garden Grapes Basic Starter Kit.
If you already have some of the equipment or don't wish to purchase a kit, you might need some of the following:
Lid for bucket with hole and fitted grommet (for the airlock)
Syphon Tubing with tap and sediment trap (often known as a Simple Syphon)
Mixing Paddle
Straining bag or muslin
Cleaner/Steriliser.
I will talk about some other things too, like non-specialist buckets and demijohns. Most of these you will probably already have in your kitchen.
The Importance of Sterilising
Sterilising all the equipment you use is one of the most important things you need to remember when making any wine, beer, cider or mead. Unwanted bacteria can completely spoil the final result and you risk everything going to waste if you don't sterilise everything that will come into contact with your wine.
Powdered sterilisers like VWP are easy to use and you will quickly get used to sterilising your equipment. You simply mix the powder with water, leave the equipment soaking in the mixture for about 20 minutes, give it a final rinse under the tap (not all sterilisers require you to rinse them off but I do) and then immediately use the equipment whilst it's still sterile.
How much Juice will my Grapes produce?
You can calculate how much juice your fruit will produce once you know the weight of the grapes you have.
The rule of thumb is that roughly '1kg of grapes will produce 1 litre of juice'. A demijohn (the glass or PET fermentation vessel you transfer the wine into from the bucket for the second stage of winemaking - see below) makes 6 standard-sized bottles of wine. It holds 4.5 litres, so you'll need at least 5kg of grapes to ensure you have enough juice, ideally more to allow for wastage.
If you don't quite have enough grapes, you can top up with grape juice. This could be red or white grape juice concentrate, depending on whether you're making red, white or rose wine. Grape juice from a carton is also ok, provided it's pure 100% grape juice, not juice drink with sugar and preservatives added. Preservatives are designed to stop fruit juice from fermenting, which is the opposite of what you want.
Does it matter what variety of grapes I have?
Not really, but it will affect the final outcome. In winemaking, not all grapes are created equal. Just because they're grapes, unfortunately that doesn't guarantee your grapes will make lovely wine. Many people have 'mystery grapes' in their garden which are not specific wine grape varietals like chardonnay or pinot noir. Or they might be, but the chances are they aren't. That doesn't stop you making wine from them, but bear in mind that you can't make a red wine with the depth of a commercial one from mystery red garden grapes. But you can certainly make wine from any grapes and, in many cases, a perfectly drinkable one at that.
Where can I get a demijohn?
When you move on to the second stage of your wine making, you'll be straining off your
wine from the bucket into a 'fermentation vessel' which is often a demijohn. If nobody in your family has a demijohn kicking around in the garage or loft, you might find one on Freecycle or at your local dump. They are far more common that you might imagine - they're often for sale at our local recycling centre aka dump for £1 or £2 each and have very limited uses other than for homebrewing. If all else fails you'll find new demijohns for sale online.
Alternatively, you can use plastic PET demijohns.
Another option is to convert a 5 litre water bottle from any major supermarket into a fermentation vessel. Simply empty out the water and put it aside for making your wine, drill a hole in the top of the lid and insert an airlock. Find out more detail about how to do that and the size of drill bit you need in this blog post about turning a water bottle into a demijohn.
Can't I just make my wine in a bucket from start to finish?
Yes you can, and brewing buckets often have a hole in the lid to take an airlock for that purpose. Bear in mind though that you want to avoid a large gap between the liquid surface and the lid, so you will need to top it up with shop bought juice (red grape juice concentrate, white grape juice concentrate or simple grape juice with no added preservatives) if you don't have enough home produced juice to fill it. You should also ensure your bucket lid is secured very tightly, and avoid removing it once the airlock is fitted to avoid contamination.
Most brewers like transferring the must to demijohns after the first fermentation though, either because they generally don't want to make 25 litres of wine in one go, and/or it is easier to see what is happening inside a clear vessel and to watch the wine clearing. I'm a great advocate of making one demijohn to start with, even if you have the capacity for more. It's a lot of work to make vast amounts and would be a great pity to discover you don't like the taste at the end of all that.
How will I know when my grapes are ready to pick for winemaking?
Your grapes will look ripe, feel firm and taste sweet. If they don't taste nice, the
wine is unlikely to taste nice either.
Is there any difference in the winemaking process if I have Red or White Grapes?
If you have red grapes, you will be leaving the skins and pulp in the grape juice for a
time when making your wine, as the red colour is mainly in the grape skins.
If you have white grapes, you'll be straining the skins and pulp off and only using the juice.
Other than this, the process is the same for both red and white grapes.
And if you want a rosé colour, you can leave the pulp and skins in the juice for a couple
of days and then strain it so you just get a pink tinge rather than a full blown red wine. Or you can add white grape juice concentrate to your home produced red grape juice to dilute it to pink.
What if there isn't enough juice to fill my demijohn?
You ideally want your juice to come up to the 'shoulders' of the demijohn for fermentation. Sometimes when you pour your juice into your demijohn, it's only then that you realise you don't have quite enough juice to do that.
To avoid a large gap at the top of the demijohn which can cause issues, simply top up
with store-bought grape juice (not grape juice drink with sugar added, just pure grape
juice) or bottled water.
What kind of sugar should I use to make wine from grapes?
Standard granulated sugar from your kitchen cupboard is fine.
Which wine yeast should I use?
You have a wide choice of yeasts with which to make wine from grape juice. Red Wine Yeast, White Wine Yeast, Sparkling Wine Yeast and many variations of specialist wine yeast depending on the style of wine you want to make.
You could go by recommendations and/or reviews. If all else fails, I'd start with a universal wine yeast.
How long will it be until I can drink the wine I've made?
This tends to be the million dollar question and it really will depend on the sugar content, the grapes, the amount of tannin in them, all sorts. So when it's time to bottle your wine, it's a good idea to taste it at this stage.
If it's reasonably palatable at that stage - strawberry wine often is, for example, grape wine not so much - then about 6 months may be enough. If it's nowhere near, do not be downhearted. Just leave it for longer.
This will be particularly the case when you use red skinned grapes. It could literally be years before the wine is nice to drink. When it comes to homemade wine, time is your friend.
How do I extract Juice from my Grapes?
The method I outline here for extracting juice from fruits will work, but bear in mind that breaking the pips needs to be avoided as broken pips make wine taste bitter. That's probably how pressing grapes with hands and feet rather than attacking them with a fence post or whatever caught on.
Plus you get to pretend you're an ancient Roman, which is always a good thing.
So what is the method for making wine from Garden Grapes?
Having covered all the background information, I'll now cover the tried and tested method for making wine from garden grapes.
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