Zinfandel Wine

Home winemaking is satisfying and can produce some great results. Get your hands on some quality grapes, acquire the gear and your off to the races. Uncle Mike shows you how he makes wine from whole grapes and proves that to make good homemade wine all you need are good fruit, the right yeast culture and the know-how. The Zinfandel grape is the home winemaker's friend, versatile, forgiving and tasty.

Mike takes you from crates of whole Zinfandel grapes to polished red wine in this one. To make wine on this scale makes sense especially if you are making wine from imported whole grapes. The entire process spans the year, but you are also making enough wine to drink for a year, well for most of us anyways? With basic wine equipment like a home crusher/de-stemmer, Demi-johns, and large primary fermenters, once purchase will last you a lifetime of winemaking and considering the price per bottle it will pay for itself in a few vintages.

Mike imports his Zin grapes from Lodi California every year, the quality is high and Zinfandel travels well which will inevitably produce better wine. This tutorial is an example of a more natural wine making process, Mike chooses not to use chemical preservatives or clarifiers, but of course that?s up to individual preference and that?s what making and drinking wine is all about.

The Zin tutorial is not for wine wankers or fine wine conosursers, this is DIY wine making with the best possible ingredients, producing some of the best home-made wine we have ever tasted. Salute!

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Ingredients
3. Grapes
4. Equipment
5. Powerwash
6. Crush
7. Original Gravity
8. Inoculation
9. Pressing
10. Terminal Gravity
11. Punching Down the Cap
12. Secondary Racking
13. Bottling
14. Tasting