Clearing and Finishing.


The aim now is to take the murky looking alcholic slosh and turn it into wine that follows these requirments.

  1. The wine is crystal clear.
  2. The wine is bottled and labeled.
  3. The wine does not want to start fermenting in the bottle.
  4. The wine is drinkable.

This is dead easy to achieve. It is a process of clearing and racking that has no real set pattern, the following is just a guide.

  • Kill the wine. Add 1 crushed campden tablet and a couple of teaspoons of wine stabliser. After 24 hours the last vestiges of fermentation will have ceased. The stabiliser will prevent further fermentation occouring.
  • Now add a couple of teaspoons of wine finings. After a week the gunk in the wine will have gone away.
  • Rack again.
  • Use your intelligance to employ the above to get a demijohn of clearish wine.
  • Taste. If the wine lacks acidity, add some more, if it is too acid add some chalk. This is not entirely nessesary, but it is fun.
  • I advise filtering at this point. Filters are cheap and very effective. Try visiting Boots.
  • Now siphon/pour the wine in some wine bottles. Cork the bottles with plastic or cork corks. if you use real corks I advise a corking machine. You are sopposed to get six bottles to the gallon. You won't.
  • Give the wine a label.
  • Now mature for two years. Ha. Thats what the book says! The wine is just about drinkable now. Left for a couple of months it will improve enormously. Six months to a year will have even more effect. It will not go off. The only way you are going to get mature winre is to make so much wine that it gets a decent chance to mature.
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