Red Wine Recipe
EQUIPMENT
• Two vessels. One wide mouth open top for primary fermentation. Second with a narrow mouth
and a tight seal for the secondary fermentation. Primary to be of twice the size as secondary and
it is better if the lid/ mouth is large enough to allow our hand through.
• A large potato masher to pulp the grapes or a screw juicer
• A muslin cloth to strain.
• Airlock and a cloth to keep the bugs away
• Siphon or transfer pipe
• A stirrer, preferably steel or something with an easy to clean non-porous surface (avoid wood).
INGREDIENTS
• 15 kg of grapes: (1.5kg per litre of wine. You can use Bangalore Blue or any black grapes. There is
no merit in watering down our wines
• 3gm Campden powder: a preservative to kill molds.
• 1kg Sugar (optional) to improve alcohol content and sweetness.
• 5 gm Yeast Nutrients.
• 10 gm red wine Yeast (1gm/litre)
• 5 gm Fining agents: Pectinase 0.5gm/L, Bentonite (0.5gm/L), Isinglass (0.01g/L), Remember they
are added separately.
INSTRUCTIONS
Day 1
1. Manually select the ripest of the grape bunches from the vine. A refractometer will help to
measure the sugar content by taking a few drops of juice. Else, pulp about 250ml of grape juice and
measure the density with a hydrometer. Remember, wine grapes are supposed to taste tart, which tends
to mask their sweetness. Therefore, for the untrained tongue, tasting a few grapes will not give them the
right sugar levels. Good grapes have more than 18% sugar and their juice has a specific gravity of 1.074.
(Which corresponds to ~10% potential alcohol levels).
2. Go through the grapes, remove any bruised or rotting fruit. Remove NGM (Non-grape material)
like insects, infected parts and remove as much woody stem as possible. It is outdated to see people
stomping on the grapes but a more practical method will be to put them in linen, nylon or mesh bags
and then squeeze them. An oversized potato masher like device does wonders. If the grapes have seeds,
then avoid using a blender. The crushed seeds and stems release bitter off flavours. Inviting friends and
kids over to help is something that will give everyone a nice group activity to bond over the course of
the day.
3. Collect the must (fresh grape juice). The red colour of grape wines comes from the exocarp (skin
of the grapes). Depending on how deep a colour we want, one might tweak the contact with the skin
that releases red tannins.
4. About ½ a gm of Campden preservative is good enough for 4kg of grapes and it has to be kept
overnight in a covered place for the Sulphur dioxide to kill the microbes.
5. Adding some Pectin Enzyme (pectinase) would also aid in clearing of the wine.
Day 2
1. Grapes are poor in nitrogen or proteins, hence ~0.5gm of yeast nutrients per litre should be
added to facilitate yeast to multiply and make a healthy culture. The goal here is to allow the yeast
strains to grow and dominate the juice. If we are using wild yeast then the nutrients should be added on
first day itself.
2. I also supplement some additional sugar to increase the wine strength. If using raisins, jaggery or
unrefined sugar, my advice would be to dissolve and boil the syrup to get rid of the mold sticking on it.
The goal is to reach about 18-20% sugar (fruit sugar + added sugar), so depending on the type of
grape, we would need anything between 60 to 120gms of sugar per litre.
3. Indian taste buds prefer a bit stronger alcohol with a sweeter finishing taste. A lot of Indian wine
makers aim for a Brix of 24% (SG of 1.1 that typically results in 13.5-14% alcohol).
4. (Advanced tip:) You may step feed sugar and nutrients, which means rather than putting all in
one go, add 1/3 parts over the next 3-5 days. Adding nutrients in the secondary part is a bad idea as
yeast is not supposed to multiply in anaerobic conditions.
5. Maintaining acidity is also important to prevent mold spoilage. Good wine grapes are very acidic
(pH ~3.5). If we are using table wines then some citric acid or malic acid or tartaric acid addition is
required to maintain the acidity. They are usually sold as acid blends in wine making stores.
6. Primary Fermentation: Add yeast nutrients, sugar & yeast. Pour the must in a wide mouth jar.
Cover it with a cloth mesh and wait for the magic to happen. It will rise a bit so taking a jar of twice the
final output of wine is the thumb rule.
Day 3
1. The bubbling sound should start coming after 24 hours. Now, the most wonderful morning ritual
of the winemaker will start. Sanitize a big spoon/ paddle and stir our fermenter every day. If we put our
ears on the walls of the vessel, we can overhear vigorous bubbling sounds. It is like cooking without fire.
No wonder Latin roots of fermentation is Fervere which means “to boil, seethe”
2. The fermentation is an exothermic reaction. Also high temperatures stresses the yeast, which
results in higher ratios of fusel alcohols and Dimethyl Sulphide (DMS). This is the leading cause of
migraines and hangover. Keep the temperature below 25oC and above 10oC. Ideal temperature is about
15oC but remember to measure the liquid temperature and not the room temperature.
3. (Advanced tip): A thermostat fitted refrigerator, chest freezer or air-conditioned room is ideal to
battle the Indian summers. Amateurs can keep the fermenter in a tub and fill it with ice before leaving
for office in the morning. As the ice melts, the stress of noon peak temperatures is overcome. Swamp
cooling can be achieved by covering the fermenter by a wet t-shirt.
Day 7
1. It is time to separate the seeds, skin and pulp from the wine (Did you notice that we are referring
to it as wine rather than grape must?) The vigour in fermentation has also slowed down and the natural
CO2 blanket shielding the liquid from oxidation will weaken. Hence, it is time to siphon the wine. Take
extra care so that we do not disturb the sediment and floating debris. The clear broth in the centre is
what we want for our best wine.
2. Primary fermentation is open to air. Hence susceptible to oxidation. If the wine is not removed in
time (7-14 days), it can turn oxidized and even turn from red to golden colour. Hence, we move to
secondary fermentation.
3. (Advanced tip): You should monitor hydrometer reading daily. When 70% of the sugar is
fermented (from the brix level reading), it is time to transfer the wine to secondary vessel. This is
important if we are using wild yeast or low temperature fermentation where the process can take longer
than necessary.
4. (Advanced tip): Small batch makers often discard the floating pulp. However, large batch makers
want to focus on maximum yield. Hence, they press the skin and pulp residue in a wine press or in any
oversized potato masher to extract wine.
5. Secondary Fermentation: Now that we have transferred our clean wine into a narrow mouth
airtight fermenter with an airlock, it is time to wait for it to settle. The happiest part is that one need not
stir the pulp every day, instead observe it once a week to top up the airlock (refilling the airlock’s water
barrier with a disinfectant). Temperatures now can be lowered to ~13oC to aid in clarification and
mellowing of harsh flavours. Be mindful of the headspace or the air gap between the liquid and the
airlock. This could fill with Oxygen and cause unnecessary oxidation.
Day 21
1. (Advanced tip): You can now taste the wine and improve flavours and colours by adding oak
chips (1-3gms per litre), tannins (artificial red colour extract), spices (peppers, star anise, cinnamon,
cardamom, cloves etc. pairs well, few gms per litre is usually sufficient). If we plan to use fining agents,
now is the right time to introduce some bentonite slurry or isinglass.
2. In another week, the bubbling in the airlock should slow down drastically and the hydrometer
would sink below 1.00 (indicating dry wine or completion of fermentation).
3. Now comes the real test of patience. Allowing it to sit for another 2 weeks (total 4 weeks from
grape pulping) would allow it to clarify, tone down the harsh flavours and make it palatable. The yeasty
flavours of the fresh wine will also mellow down over time.
4. (Advanced Tip): Cold crashing (i.e., keeping the wine at 4o C) would help slowing the Brownian
motion and accelerate sedimentation. Beverages are colloidal solution with small solid particles
suspended in it causing haze. Brownian motion is the term used to measure their suspension.
Day 28
1. Bottling day. Now comes another hard-working day. Clean the bottles, sanitize them and siphon
the wine (without disturbing the sediments). Adding a bit of Campden (1/8gm per litre) would give it
enough SO2 to preserve the wine. It might be a good idea to invite friends over to drink fresh wine as
they help clean the bottles. Take a poll on what name should be given to the wines and what would be
the appropriate artwork of the labels.
Finishing Touches
Back Sweeten Wine: If we want to sweeten the wine, there are three ways:
1. First, raise the alcohol levels to the extent that yeast can no longer metabolize. This strategy is
used in port wines where distilled brandy is added to raise the alcohol to ~20% ABV.
2. Some home wine makers would also add excess of sugar in primary to take the yeast to its
alcohol tolerance limits. I will not recommend that as it can produce stressed yeast flavours. That being
said, it is still widely used tactic in traditional recipes.
3. Add preservatives (like potassium sorbate) at the time of bottling to stop yeast action. These wine
stabilizers stop yeast from functioning and prevent the added sugar from being fermented and corks
popping out. It is widely used in industry and is the most preferred method.
Aging Wine
1. I always ferment my wine dry. It helps me detect off flavours easily (without sugar masking them)
and gives me flexibility to convert the batch into a dry, sweet, cooking or cider vinegar based on the
progress of transformation.
2. It is a misconception that older wines are better, like any fermented food items, wines have an
optimal timeframe where they taste best. Most winemakers will make one or two batches a year and it
might be a good idea to store them in a cool place away from sunlight for one to three years. The above
is a basic recipe that one can alter based on their style, heritage and availability of time & resources.
NOTES
Winemaking is simple but needs patience.
