No you don’t need to have a winery or a vineyard to make wine. As a matter of fact, you don’t even need much technical expertise on how to make good wine. All it will take is the interest and curiosity of producing a homemade brew which you can serve to a special friend or reserve for some special occasions. The materials that you will need can easily be purchased from a supermarket or grocery store. The process and principles involved in wine making are really very simple and practical so that wine making is one ideal home project.

Home wine making instructions are easy to follow. First of course is buying the right ingredients, foremost of which is the main raw material: 100% pure grape juice with no additives whatsoever. Having purely natural grape juice is very important as it will dictate the quality of the wine. The ideal way for beginners to start is with three 1-liter boxes or bottles of grape juice. You will also need dry baker’s yeast, granulated sugar, 2-and 3 centileters (cl) of water. To complete the items, be ready with four to six empty glass bottles, clean and odorless paper napkins, rubber bands and a funnel.

With these you are all set for homemade wine making. Distribute the total 3-liter grape juice into your four empty bottles each of which will then contain 75 cl. Add granulated sugar. Shake to dissolve the sugar. This mixture is necessary for the fermentation process which should give your wine an alcohol volume of 10-11%. Mix your water with one-half teaspoon of baker’s yeast and one teaspoon of granulated sugar in a glass. Cover the glass and store it in a dark place for 1-2 hours after which a thick layer of foam will be formed. Mix one-fourth of the foam layer and three teaspoons of water with yeast sugar to each of the four grape juice bottles. Seal the bottles with the napkins and rubber bands and store the containers in a dark place with ideal temperature of 25 degrees Celsius for about 9-12 days. For better quality, transfer the fermenting wine into new bottles at one or two-day intervals, excluding any sediment formed.

When going into tasting rooms, there are certain etiquette rules one should follow. If you are wondering to yourself what these rules entail, you are not alone. The most basic rule for wine tasting is to start with white and work your way to the reds. Another hint is to go from dry to sweet within your white and red wines. Strong flavors can overwhelm the palate and can hinder your taste buds from experiencing the bouquets of each wine. Always save your dessert and ice wines for last. Those have the most sweetness and fullness attached to them and affects your palates ability to experience the next tasting.

When entering a wine establishment, do not be timid. Go ahead and walk straight to the bar; most places are fairly relaxed and informal. After you take a seat, you will be approached by a bartender or a barista. If you do not know much about the wine you are about to sample, just ask. Most servers who do wine tastings enjoy explaining the wine and the flavors that are incorporated. Remember to work your way from whites, to red, to ports and ice wine. Wine tasting can be an involved process. To help you understand various flavors of wine, keep a journal when participating in tastings. This will help you to identify specific flavors, regions, and full bodied wines. Also it will be a great reference for when you want a particular flavor of wine to pair with food or share with friends and family. There are a few things to look for when doing a tasting if you are planning on becoming a wine connoisseur: color of the wine, legs, the aroma, and fullness or flavor of that wine. Smelling and tasting the wine poured for you during a tasting are the two most important steps in the examination your wine.

Now that all of our bases are covered, let us talk about spitting after tasting. Movies show wine tasters spitting out the wine after they taste. This is not always the approach that needs to be taken. The reason why people spit out the wine after tasting it is mainly because of the alcohol content involved. As we have all heard, alcohol can hinder your judgment and this is true even with our sense of taste. You only truly need to spit out the wine if you are doing several tastings, more than ten, or if you are at a formal wine tasting. Tasting 20 glasses can cause you to become intoxicated even if you spit it out because alcohol is absorbed through the skin in your mouth.