Additional Terms in the Winemaking Process Articles | Home Winemaking

By: Homemade Vino

While looking through different winemaking terms, you will see that a number of them explain what the processes involved in winemaking are. These terms are not always concise and it is essential that you understand the different terms which are used in the winemaking process. It is difficult to learn these terms but in the end it will be easier when you learn from people trying to tell you about winemaking process and what it entails. A number of different explanations exist online about the different winemaking terms or you can go to the library or bookstore and pick up a few books that teach you about the winemaking process.

People sometimes talk about letting wine breathe; this usually entails allowing the wine mix with air by letting the wine remain in a bottle that has been opened or in your wineglass. It is a short process which lets the wine come to full flavor before you take a drink. If wine has too much acetic acid in it, this is a bad thing. All wines tend to have acetic acid but too much of this acid is bad for wine. If your wine smells like vinegar or tastes like it, it means that you have made a mistake. This wine will be flawed and shouldn’t be drunk at all. If wine is referred to as corked it means that the cork of the wine is moldy or damaged in some in some way. What this does is that it creates a chemical reaction within the wine which changes the bouquet as well as the flavor in the negative sort of way. Corked wine isn’t drinkable as well.

Yeast and sugar react together to create ethyl alcohol. The percentage of alcohol in wine is determined by the presence of alcohol in the wine. Bottle sickness is also called bottle shock and the term is used when wine in a bottle has been shaken too much during travel. This usually occurs when wine is still in its early stages after it has been bottled. This wine can be remedied by being left for some days so that it settles down.

Botrytis is a double-edged sword and it can either destroy you or be to your benefit. It is actually a fungus which tends to attack grapes and which may eliminate a vineyard. It is also a good thing sometimes, especially when it causes noble rot instead of destroying the grape crop. Noble rot takes water away from the grapes and this leaves behind a sugary juice which makes sweet and great tasting wine. Chaptalization is the process through which sugar can be added to juice before you ferment it. This way, more alcohol is made during the process and the name comes from the man who invented this procedure Jean-Antoine Chaptal. These are just a few of the simple terms that concern winemaking and a number of other terms exist which you can familiarize yourself with over time depending on how interested you are in the winemaking process.