Alan Rowe continues his series on wine, cyder and perry with instructions on how to make your own wine.

If the wine in your glass is respectable, then the vines from which it came were afforded respect. The variety or varieties were chosen with care and everyone concerned, from planting to the bottle, gave of their best.

It is all too easy to make poor wine from good grapes, but it is not possible to make good wine from poorly grown or poorly chosen varieties and so the crucial decision is to choose varieties which will enjoy the terroir which is your garden and to grow them well. Few of the market leaders' will thrive in England outside, but there are a great many other varieties which will and will do well. When I began I took advice from specialist growers and continue to do and I suggest that it is a far better start than to take what is on offer at the local garden centre. Read as many opinions as you can.
 
The First Three Years
I offer but a gallop through cultivation - a post 1990 handbook should give good guidance, but you must work toward going your own way. Planting can be done at anytime, if the vine is container grown, otherwise in the autumn or spring and planted in 1.5m (4'6") square stations. Most vines are content with the terroir they get but with some exceptions - Chardonnay and Pinot Noir require a limey soil and Siegerrebe will not tolerate lime. A base dressing of blood, fish and bone or ‘National Growmore’ at 100g/m.sq. establishes a good start.

After planting cut back to two buds. During the first year, cut out the weakest shoot,  remove side shoots from the leader and tie in to a cane. Cut back to three or four buds after leaf fall in the second year and remove all but the strongest shoot and begin growing for the chosen system.
 
Some vines make better progress than others and some growers take a small crop in the second year. My practice has been to leave one bunch on only - more to confirm the variety than anything else, for I believe that the young vine has enough to do, getting established.
 
The third year is the first crop year and one bunch on each fruiting cane should be the maximum. Subsequent crops may be from two bunches per fruiting cane, but no more.

It is not possible to decide ripeness on taste alone, for some varieties hide their sugars behind acidity and others taste sweet because of lower acidity The only way to establish sugar content with accuracy is by using a hydrometer - which is inexpensive, but requires the juice from a bunch of grapes; or by using a refractometer - which is more costly, but needs only the juice from a single grape. Refractometers are available on the net, but check on the scale which they use. Both need a reference table of values.

Most American growers favour the Brix scale but British growers  prefer to use either specific gravity (SG) - for example, 1070, meaning SG of 1.070 -  or the Oechsle (Oe) scale - for example, 70^oOe. (Possible alcohol 9.3%) The lowest gravity permitted for wine making under EU regulations is 1055 or 55^o Oe, which will give an alcohol content of 7.2% and towering acidity!

Acid is the spine of a wine and without it wine takes on the taste of old fashioned cough mixture, but in excess it is offensive, even ruinous. There are ways of neutralising excess acidity, but they are, for me, unnatural and result from, a bad choice of variety, a bad season or bad husbandry. Vines in their first season will have done well to reach 1060 and when sugar is added to achieve 1070 - 75. The wine will be acidic, lack the 'body' and nuances to be had from later crops, but will be a marker and probably as good as plonk!

Do not rush to knock out the acid, for much will go as the wine matures and if malo-lactic ferment ‘happens' in the spring. The aim is to grow and to be able to harvest without the need for chaptalisation. Some residual acid is essential for 'spine', balance and the formation of esters during ageing and an insufficiency will result in flabbiness or worse.

If later harvests are delayed until the grapes reach 70 to 75^o 0e for white wines, giving 9.3 to 10% alcohol, then acidity will not be a problem. English ‘red’ is most often, not, but I have found that 80^oOe gives a pleasant dark pink with Dornfelder (grown under glass) or Gagarin Blue.

Fertiliser
Whether you take a crop or not, the soil has been depleted. Contrary to persisting opinion, grapes do not prefer poor land - they make the best of it and most vines on poor land need to be spaced much further apart than those in better situations. Fine Bordeaux is grown over deep mineral rich gravels; fine Mosel wine is grown on deep slate and shales, whose fissures are loaded with mineral waters. 

The spent pulp may be used for Marc or Brandtweln, but it returns to the vine eventually, along with any other mulch which the grower can source. Do mulch, go very easy on nitrogen, the flab maker; be generous with potash, essential for flavour, and with phosphorous, essential in root formation and photosynthesis. An occasional dressing of magnesium is essential for chlorophyll production.

General care
Be sure that your vines can attend to high quality fruit production by removing all side shoots as soon as they are noticed and maintain a 'no fruit’ then ‘no shoot’ regime. Never allow more than two bunches per fruiting growth even on established vines and keep fruiting growth back to 6 - 8 leaves after the last bunch. Never cut 'brown' wood, except during dormancy and remember that fruit comes from buds set last year. 

Choice of Training Regime
All training systems fall within two main types: cane replacement or spur pruning. Cane replacement requires that all fruited wood is cut out and replaced by canes which have been grown in the current year for that purpose. Spur pruning retains as much of fruited wood as is needed and all side shoots are pruned to (usually) two buds, one or both will become next season's fruiting laterals. Choice of system(s) is the only time when your needs take precedence and are a matter of suiting the vineyard.

Double Guyot is the most recommended and the most useful on estates, but not necessarily so in the garden -  where and whenever possible a system which allows all round access to the vine is best. As an example, my 12 metre square netted vines ar trained mostly as spur pruned Single Guyot.

Harvest
Ripening time is dependent upon the variety, the season and the age of the vine, but is most usually after mid-September. My outside harvest begins, most usually, in mid-October. It is most important that you are sure your harvest is ready and then to pick only as many as you can process immediately. Some consider that de-stemming is essential, but I follow Mosel practice which follows the assertion that wine comes not from the juice of grapes but from the extract of bunches. I remove the top couple of sprigs from white bunches and then cut close to the bunch. I do de-stem red grapes which are richer in tannins than white grapes.

Weigh the yield and record and then milll as soon as possible, adding two crushed Campden tablets per gallon (5 litres) and a pectin destroying enzyme. This early action precludes the likelihood of protein hazes later. ‘Pectolase’ is the most commonly used, but ‘Clearzyme’ is better, for it acts upon starches and cellulose too. Both enzyme mixes maximise extract also. Wine domains, may well carry enough natural yeasts for fermenting well, but even so, most growers stun the wild yeast and use a chosen pure culture.

Now comes your first decision as a wine maker. Some press immediately, others leave the pulp standing for up to 24 hours; some leave black grapes for longer and indeed add the chosen yeast to the pulp for two or three days before pressing. My practice is to press white wine after 24 hours. I add yeast to red wine after 24 hours to be pressed three days later, when I feel that all the colour which is to be had, is extracted.                                 

Do not be tempted to over-press, for not only does the law of diminishing returns apply, but the free-run and reasonably pressed give the premium wine. Some recommend soaking the pressed pulp, repressing and chaptalising to 70 or 75^o0e for a 'Country' wine - but why? We are not aiming at plonk!  Put the spent grapes on the compost heap!

Yeast, Starter, Pitching and Fermentation
The choice of yeast is of great importance, for some of the nuances in wine are from the yeast. It should complement the grape. My preference is always for one of the Gervin range. It is best to make a starter. To do this you need about half a pint of juice heated to just under or boiling. When no warmer than hand hot, transfer to a clean (milk) bottle and add the yeast. A good yeast will be away within 10 minutes, but I wait about 20-30 minutes. Now is a critical point, for more ferments fail as the yeast is pitched rather than later. Yeast is a sensitive organism and large scale death occurs if a warm starter is pitched into cold juice. Do arrange that the temperatures of the two liquids are similar.

Use as few fermentation containers as you may, for the larger the volume the more stable is the temperature. Keep white wines under 15^oC if you can. Reds can work at higher temperatures, but a cool ferment protects bouquet and taste. I favour filling the container and allowing a cleansing overflow for a couple of days before sealing under a trap.

Your next task is to wait. When the ferment dies away - apparently completely - the must is racked off the lees. A superior yeast will have stuck firmly to the base and so facilitate racking. Add half a Campden tablet per gallon, top up and close under a trap and wait again. Repeat this procedure until only a slight precipitation or none and cork down. A measure of sulphite is essential for the health of the wine and it takes part in some reactions. Oversulphiting is ruinous - as some poor Sauternes will confirm - but about 50 parts per million will ensure good health without offence. The adding of half a Campden tablet per racking and before bottling will maintain this level.

Late April is soon enough to consider bottling. Before bottling your wine should be ‘polished’ and if you wish filtered, remembering than the overdoing of either will take out not only unwanted material. I use 'Kwickclear'. Try to leave your vintage until just before the next harvest before tasting.

If you worked to dryness then you may wish to add either sugar - which may induce fermentation unless added together with potassium benzoate (medium dry has 9-18 grams sugar per litre) or sucralose which is unfermentable. Then look to your harvest with an experienced eye!

Bon chance!