Red wine is made from which grapes

Learn How Red Wine is Made According to an Experienced Winemaker

After harvest and crush, when the sweet juice of the fruit of the season is at long last captured, the real winemaking begins.

How is wine made step by step

Now that the grapes have given up their treasure, winemakers have some choices to make.

Crushing The Grapes

Let’s start with the crush. Here, in the shaded confines of the winemaker’s lair, cellar work and decisions start with grapes that arrived from harvest and went through destemming (or not), maceration (generally on the skins), and the must (juice + skins) is ready for it’s first one on one encounter with its (wine)maker.

Red wine, by its nature, is produced with skin contact.

Indeed, red wine is red primarily due to its contact with the skin+seed+stem material collectively known as pomace. Thanks to Ribereau-Gayon (1998) we have this handy definition:

“[r]ed wine is a macerated wine.