Winery Articles

This article is a high high level overview about making wine and wine processing. It is mostly from the point of view of the consumer making their own wine. Apparently now people can go to a local wine processing place and create their own wines. This is already rather popular in the beer industry where consumers can make their own beer. You get an idea of what you should consider and what you would need when you are going to make your wine. Read on for more!

Tags: make wine - wine processing

For many people, wine is the elixir of life. It has depth, beauty, complexity, and it requires craftsmanship and exacting standards to produce. The process of making wine involves a heritage that has evolved through the centuries, and today this results in a wide of choice for consumers. We can enjoy deep, complex red wines that have been aged for years, or light, fresh whites that are new and meant to be consumed young.

Today, even the casual consumer can purchase or make affordable and delicious wine. It is the potential to make wine one's own that we are discussing today, since it brings easy-to-make, affordable wine to a multitude of people who enjoy the craft as well as the finished product. The industry which enables this has grown from a cottage industry to a full-fledged consumer product producer with many competitors. This competition has been good for the consumer, as companies fought for market share by creating a variety of new offerings and improving the quality and user-friendliness of the kits needed to make wine. Innovation and quality have been the hallmarks of the leaders in the industry, and the top kit makers guarantee the results of their products.

As an individual, making quality wine offers more choices and is easier than ever before. With today's top-notch kits and the easy-to-follow instructions that come with them, any adult can craft fine wine.

The Process

The first step is to ensure you are buying quality ingredients; juice or concentrated juice sourced from reputable wineries, additives packed with care and little or no sugar added. Essentially, the steps involving missing the original ingredients and adding yeast, which will begin (and complete) the fermentation process. Other enhancements may be made during the process, such as the addition of oak or other flavor enhancements.

You will need a set of basic fermenting equipment, which is generally sold in kit form as well, just like the initial ingredients required. Once the fermentation is complete, you will then take steps to clear your young wine, and at the desired time, you will bottle it. Each step is well laid out in your kit instructions, and there are tools available to help with each of the manual labor steps, such as filtering and bottling. At the end of the process, you will have crafted approximately 30 bottles of your choice of wine, at a fraction of the price for similar wines at retail. Most home winemakers take great pride in their wines, and these days the quality and innovation behind the kits makes their friends and family want to share!

Speaking of Innovation...

The latest innovation in the home winemaking industry is in-store wineries. For a fee, customers can now process their wines using state-of-the-art winemaking facilities in their local wine store. There is no equipment to buy" from mixing to bottling, all equipment is available in the winery and the wine itself goes through the process in-store. While not all wine kits stores offer this service, it is a growing trend and those that do are reaping the benefits of loyal and happy customers.

This article is brought to you by Wine Kitz Moncton, a full service wine kit store in beautiful Moncton, New Brunswick.

Shauna Arthurs is a writer, business owner and investor who is passionate about helping others achieve financial freedom and pursue their dreams. She owns and contributes to a network of websites and blogs dedicated to this passion, including Follow Your Path and Women & Money.

An interesting article on how critters or animals are creeping into the marketing and branding of many of the new wine labels. Wineries and Vineyards are seeing this opportunity to increase their share of the market by creating interesting labels with animals on them. I was recently at a wine tasting and have seen this very thing myself. So many animals.... So little time to taste all the wine....

It comes as no news to anyone that the American people love
their animals. What did come as a surprise to me is that we also
love animals on our wine labels. Yes, a study released earlier
this year by ACNielsen confirms that wine labels with animal
images are becoming increasingly popular in this country.

I felt compelled to do my own research on this topic so one
evening I stopped by my local liquor store to check out the wine
selection. Sure enough I was greeted with a veritable zoo of
animals on labels. There were Dancing Bulls, Leaping Horses,
Black Swans, Little Penguins, Kangaroos, even a hippopotamus
courtesy of Fat Bastard Wines (which is French would you
believe). This very informal research confirmed that there seems
to be a much larger selection of wines with animal labels than
ever before.

Critter Labels Rule

In the wine industry these animal labels are affectionately
known as "critter labels", and the trend began back in 2001 with
the introduction of the Yellow Tail brand of wines into this
country from Australia. Pictured on the label is what looks like
a kangaroo (but which is in fact supposed to be the
yellow-footed rock wallaby). These wines had labels that looked
striking, were priced very reasonably and they tasted great - so
they became a runaway success. So much so that they spawned an
entire new "category" of wine.

The ACNielsen study has some hard data confirming the popularity
of this new wine category. In the past three years there have
been 438 new Table Wine brands that have been successfully
introduced in the American market (those wines that sold more
than $20,000 annually). Of these 438 new brands 77 of them
featured an animal on their label, around 18 percent. Combined
with existing "critter label" wines, sales reached $600 million
in 2005 out of a total of just over $4 billion, based on
ACNielsen sales data from supermarket point of sale purchases.

"Critter-labeled wines are on the rise, quickly gaining share in
the table wine category," said Danny Brager, vice president of
ACNielsen's Beverage Alcohol team. "The sales generated by new
brands featuring a critter outperform other new table wines by
more than two to one." That's right, taken across the board new
critter-labeled wines have proven in the marketplace to be more
popular.

"While placing a critter on a label doesn't guarantee success,
it is important that wine makers realize that there is a segment
of consumers who don't want to have to take wine too seriously,"
said Brager. "Not only are they willing to have fun with wine,
they may just feel 'good' about an animal label presentation."
With hundreds of new wine brands being introduced each year,
wine makers realize that they need to stand out from the crowd
if they are to make an impression. The easiest and most cost
effective way to stand out is with an attention grabbing label
on your bottle. The wine industry has also realized that there
is an increasingly large segment of consumers who are attracted
by fun labels. They want to buy a non-pretentious wine and they
don't want to pay a fortune. These are the people who walk into
a liquor store and supermarket and have no idea what they are
going to buy - they decide by looking at the labels.

Chasing the Yellow Tail

The Yellow Tail wine phenomenon is the perfect example of this.
From Casella Wines, a small family-owned winery in New South
Wales, Australia, Yellow Tail went from zero to the number one
imported wine in the US in just two years. The first year the
Casella brothers expected to sell 25,000 cases of wine here,
they ended up selling 200,000 cases. That was back in 2001. In
2005 they sold 8 million cases of wine. Yellow Tail Shiraz is
now the #1 selling red wine in America (not just imports but ALL
red wine). In the crowded and highly competitive US wine market
with over 6,500 wine brands, Yellow Tail has become the #1 wine
brand, and it took just five years.

Now, I realize that Yellow Tail's success is not just because of
their label. They have a great product that is reasonably priced
- the Shiraz is just $6.99 - and they have a very loyal base of
repeat customers. But could they have become #1 without their
unique label? I don't think so. One of the biggest barriers they
faced was getting people to try the wine in the first place.
With what looks like a brightly colored kangaroo on the label on
a black background, it is a visually striking label. It was able
to break through the clutter at the retail store with this label.

Perhaps the biggest indication of the success of Yellow Tail is
the number of copycats it has spawned. Penfolds, Australia's
leading winery, was obviously disappointed in missing out on
this opportunity, so they responded with the launch of the
Little Penguin brand of wines. There is now a deluge of animal
themed wines, so much so that ACNielsen is tracking their sales
now. Despite all this new competition Yellow Tail remains the
most successful wine brand in terms of total sales.

Labels are a Powerful Tool

While the wine business is somewhat unique there are lessons
here that can be applied to any industry. One lesson is that
with a high impact label you can make inroads even in a
conservative and image conscious industry such as the wine
industry. Your label should be working hard for your product. It
should be informational, be a sales and marketing piece, carry
any necessary regulatory information, and at the same time be
eye catching. If you are selling your products at a retail
store, then your label needs to perform well in all these areas
for your product to compete with other more established brands.

Your label is your sales tool. The success of Yellow Tail wines
demonstrates that in any competitive industry a good label can
help bring success. Of course, it doesn't have to feature a
critter, but a visually appealing and eye catching label will
always help sales.

About the author:
Peter Renton is the founder of Lightning Labels, Inc.
(http://www.lightninglabels.com ) the leaders in digital label
printing and custom labels. He writes regularly about the label
printing and packaging industry on his blog at
http://blog.lightninglabels.com .

Tags: wine - winery - wine labels - yellow tail

The interest in wine is growing. With the popularity of the yellow tail labels surging into markets that aren't normally known for wine drinkers, new wine lovers are being created. The interest and love of wine has an uncanny ability to cause its consumers to take a greater interest in their new found hobby, and that includes taking classes, even to the extent of receiving training as a sommelier.

Wine schools are seeing this heightened interest in wine as the rise in attendance of their classes. Many wine schools are finding themselves needing to add more classes such as wine tasting and oenology to their current curriculums. Some schools even offer online courses to help meet the demands.

wine education
wine blog

wine tasting

This is a basic article about how wine is made by wineries and the different types of wine that is produced during wine production. It goes through an overall production process, and gives some storage tips. In my opinion, it this article would work better if it were 500 words longer. It tries to cover too much with the length, but it does give you an idea of additional topics to research.

Wine is a product made from fruits like grapes, berries etc. by drying them and later fermenting them. When the grapes ferment the sugar in the grapes convert to alcohol. They are available in various colors and textures depending upon the elements present in them. For example, the wine exhibits a reddish color when the seeds and the skin of the grapes are present during the fermentation process. When it is fermented without any quantity of non-juicy parts they turn pinkish.

The three main categories in wine are fortified wine, sparkling wine or table wine. It is known as a fortified wine when a little brandy is added to enrich the alcoholic content. It is termed as still or sparkling depending upon the CO2 quantity. Table wine is available in a very natural form and is not like the other wine.

Grapes are usually the best ingredients used in the preparation of wine. There is an equal proportion of sugar and acid in them, which cannot be found in any other fruit. High temperature heat is required to dry away the grapes. You must have a thorough knowledge regarding the exact harvesting season. If the harvesting is delayed you may not be able to produce a good quality wine because the level of sugar increases and the acidic extent gets too low.

At the initial stage of processing, the grapes are crushed using a large cylindrical container that inflates the juicy part of the grapes in the large bags that are attached. They are then fermented by heating the juicy part. In the process of heating the yeast that is present helps converting the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Sometimes this solution requires fermentation for the second time due to malic acid present. When the malic acid breaks downs into lactic acid and carbon dioxide, it adds a new buttery flavor to the wine.

The next step carried out is to settle all the particles like yeast cells, or any other material flowing on the top layer. It is then filtered and all the sediments are gathered on the filter. Winery aging is the process where the wine is tightly packed in containers not allowing the air to enter in them for nearly several months and sometimes years. The wine is then transferred in small bottles and sold.

Bottling is done in such a way that it becomes easy to identify the various types of wine. Also colored bottles reduce the chances of damage, oxidation and many other risks.

After buying a wine product it is important to store it in a right place. Usually damp and cool places like underground cellars are more appropriate. There are some underlying principles regarding the storage of wine. It should be stored in a cellar at a temperature of about 55 degrees Fahrenheit. If the temperature fluctuates it will harm the quality of wine. Humidity about 60 % is necessary to keep the cork moist. Low temperatures will slow the process. Wine should be kept away from external sources like light, vibration and strong odors, which are obviously the barriers to the formation of a good quality wine.

More wine manufacturing process info:
Filtration is a vital step in the winemaking process

Paul has been providing answers to lots of queries through his website on a wide variety of subjects ranging from satellite phones to acne. To learn more visit http://www.askaquery.com/Answers/qn1538.html

Complete guide for Growing Grapes

Secrets to Making Great Wine

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Paul_Cris

Tags: wine - wineries - grapes - processing - Bottling

Learn what the wineries do when they are serving wine at a wine tasting. The atmosphere and what you serve with the wine are quite important.

Winemakers are known for their craft of making grapes into wine
but they are also very crafty people, cleverly using what is at
hand to create whatever is necessary to complete their task.
Resourceful would be another word you could use, but it
wouldn't make that sentence as much fun as it is.

We hold wine-related dinners in my winery as promotional events
after work parties and, as you might imagine, copious amounts of
wine are consumed. Many participants are attorneys, and it
became apparent there was some liability inherent in having
people consume wine at a social function in your winery and then
drive away. The same is true in your home, and so you should
share my concern not only for your friends' safety but for your
financial security should something go awry and a tree jump out
in front of your impaired pal's automobile.

Rule number # One is fairly well known, but bears repeating:
Always serve plenty of food with wine. A stomach with
something in it tempers the rate with which alcohol enters the
bloodstream and avoids the one-glass-staggering-about-the-room
syndrome. Cheese works very well for me.

But Rule # Two is less well known and, I think, much more
effective, particularly at dinner parties where several wines
and food is to be served. Have plenty of water (as in bottled or
sparkling water, all the rage here in California, but any clean
-tasting water will do) available and keep everyone's water
glass filled. Go fancy and place a thin slice of fresh lemon in
the glass. As people talk and eat and talk, you will find that
if water is available, they will drink it, in great gulps,
between taking, one hopes, smaller amounts of wine with food
bites and between contributing sound bites.

There are several benefits to this strategy.

People will consume water, which is considerably less expensive
than wine. (If, on examination, this does not appear to be true,
you might want to consider changing your brand of bottled water,
or your selection of wine, or both.) People will dilute the
alcohol level in their system with water and not become as
tipsy. Wine, especially red wine, acts as a diuretic, and causes
dehydration and thirst. By hydrating (with water instead of
wine), your guests will avoid the drugged feeling that comes
with dehydration and will also feel less of the effects drinking
wine causes some people the next morning. The only negative to
this strategy is that passionate and loquacious conversation
will be interrupted as people excuse themselves to use the
bathroom frequently. On second thought, maybe that isn't such a big negative.

Paul Kreider, who made his first wine in 1975, is the owner andwinemaker of the Ross Valley Winery in San Anselmo, California.Since 1987, with notable success, his small Marin County bonded winery has specialized in transforming modest lots of unique grapes into vineyard-designated wines, each with its own individual character and particular personality. Check our website at www.rossvalleywinery.com.

Make Wines from the comfort of your own home

Keywords: wine instruction, wine etiquitte, wine