Sunday, December 23, 2007

Home Made Grape Wine





"God made only water, but man made wine." -- Victor Hugo

My passion for wine started right from the childhood days having grown up in a Town with the majority of Christian Communities!..

There are hundreds of methods of making wine all over the world, but I've strictly stuck to the Central Kerala recipe, here.I would highly recommend this method as this had been cent percent successful to me with the Perfect Outcome!!.

"People spend too much time tasting wine; not enough time drinking it" --Andre Tchelistcheff

Yes, I am in the above category of "people”.. not a lover of wines but would love to sip a little, sense and appreciate the deep taste of the heavenly drink!..
My own proverb for wine would be-
'Knowing and appreciating wine can be compared to the knowledge of appreciating Diamonds…as it needs skill to differentiate between the good, better and the best!..'

And so when my better half turned back a couple of months ago with a box fully packed with bunches of deep red juicy grapes fresh from the vineyards, I was overjoyed!!
A part of it was passed over to relatives, a part went to make Grape juice preserve and a part was saved to make Wine!..

I made a litre of Grape wine from:

Red Grapes (with seeds)-300gms
Sugar-300 gms
Water-800 ml-boiled and cooled

Active dry yeast granules-2 tsps
Water boiled and warm-100ml-for dissolving the yeast

Wheat a tbsp(optional)
1 egg white(optional-I avoided)
Sugar for colouring-4 tsps more or less

Fermenting Wine.


Clean & wash grapes well.Remove the stalks.Wipe them dry one by one and crush with your finger tips.
Transfer the crushed grapes in a ceramic jar(I used the traditional Bharani, cleaned well enough and sun dried)..Add half the quantity of sugar (150 grams),water,egg white yeast dissolved in water and wheat.Mix well using a clean sun dried wooden spatula.Keep this airtight for 3 weeks(21 days) stirring with the wooden spatula every alternative day.

On the 22nd day, strain the mixture using a muslin cloth and discard the pulp. Add the balance sugar to the wine.


Wine 'before' and 'after' colouring.

Colouring the wine by caramelisation.

In a clean dry wok, add the sugar kept for colouring (3 tsps) – place on fire, stirring continuously till the sugar melts and acquires a deep reddish brown hue; taking care not to burn.Now add about 1-2 tbsps of hot water to this syrup little by little and mix well.Cool and add this whole syrup to the wine. Mix well.The wine would have attained a beautiful deep red colour by now.
Store the wine in a clean bottle closed with a cork & use. There would be a cloudy formation towards the bottom of the bottle.Need not worry.Pour out to wine glasses carefully not to disturb the sediment as far as possible.

The uncaramelised glass of wine you see here is slightly cloudy as it was poured out from the bottom.I reserved just 200 ml before colouring, to blog :) and finally ended up in disturbing the fine sediment :D..

"I made wine out of raisins so I wouldn't have to wait for it to age." -- Stephen Wright

Well, I too was a little impatient to wait till three weeks.So I actually used 3 tsps of yeast and fermented for just 10days as the temperature was quite warm here. I would taste the wine every time while stirring the jar and strained the wine when it reached its stage of fermentation(10 days).This strictly depends upon the outside temperature, the amount of sugar and yeast in the mixture.Wheat(starch) and egg white(protein) are used to speed up the process.I avoided both.

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket Wine is the most healthful and most hygienic of beverages" -- Louis Pasteur

Wishing You all a Merry Christmas !...

35 comments:

  1. WOW!! How fancy and beautiful Bharathy,love the crystal glasses. Enjoy girl!:))

    ReplyDelete
  2. ur best post so far sis :) the crystal glasses look lovely. (now you know what to get me for my next b'day!)

    hope you have a great xmas vacation with kids!

    ReplyDelete
  3. WOW what a brilliant drink!! Also great pics and what lovely crystal glasses ...

    Thanks for calling by my Blog ;)

    Wishing you a Happy Christmas & New Year 2008!

    Rosie x

    ReplyDelete
  4. loved it!! great presentation...the glasses..the background everything...happy holidays bharathy :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Those pics surely get me high....:)
    Beautiful glasses and a nice post....Happy holidays and enjoy

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wow Bharathy. I didn't know such a method existed. When are you gonna treat us with that cake recipe?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Homemade wine... wow Bharathy, I am always in awe of those who can make wine at home... My parents do this at home, but I've never tried :) Happy Holidays to you and family... Beautiful house BTW...

    ReplyDelete
  8. lovely,
    my mom used to make these , and still does
    hey!! u have a great Christmas!!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Merry Christmas to you and family!
    the wine looks perfect!! i too make grape wine with the same recipe! waiting for it to mature... what cake is it? yummy combination!!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Bharathy good recipe and photo too and when are u calling me to taste it!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Have never tasted wine! But have wish to taste..;D

    ReplyDelete
  12. Wow, lovely! neat crystal ware there

    ReplyDelete
  13. Lovely, lovely photos ! I have never made wine on my own, may be i should, this post is an inspiration. You have done a fabuolus job Bharathy, Merry Christmas to you. Do i see a fruitcake on the background?

    ReplyDelete
  14. Could there be anything better than making your wine yourself!!! WOW!!
    U've done a fab job!!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Hi Bharathy,

    Nice way of making home made wine.
    Thanks for the recipe, nice presentation. Happy Christmas

    ReplyDelete
  16. So you are geeting all of us drunk on homemade wine huh?? :) RCI has been announced, looking forward to your malu posts! Happy New Year!!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Looks great!!!!! a prefect treat for Christmas.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Happy Holidays to you and your family!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Looks excellent!! Beautiful pictures. Sounds yummy :-)

    ReplyDelete
  20. BHarathy..U do have patience to make wine at home. I doubt if I can make this at home. Have a wonderful & Happy New Year!

    ReplyDelete
  21. Thank you Ashaji :)

    Anything for you sis..:)

    Welcome to my place Rosie!..Wishing you the same :)

    Thank you, same to you Rajitha :)

    Thank you bhags!..why no updations lately?

    Thank you so much Cooking and the City for dropping by...Warm welcome to you :)

    Sugi,thatz a rich dark fruit cake which goes well with red wine!..not made by me..will blog when I bake myself!:)

    Sig..when you rock with ur cocktails why you wanna bother urselves with these ;)..thanks for visiting, dear!

    Welcome back.Mallu recipes.Thought these are central Kerala recipes!..So even in Northern side this is famous..eh?

    Rich dark fruit cake Lissie! :)..would love to see ur version of the drink too :)

    Renuka!you are most welcome, anytime!:D(nalla kezhvi)

    ReplyDelete
  22. Raji..this is not hard as it may sound..just try..dont ferment mush..for 4-5 days at first...sure you will like it!

    Rachel...so dint like the wine inside huh? ;)

    Who is this girl..archana? ;)

    Thanks a lot, Sugarcraft India :)

    Thanks MT.Wishing you the same!:)

    Oh so you visit only to tell things like these ;)?
    ..thanks for keeping me informed!

    Thanks a bunch,Shiva :)

    TBC, miss you!!Come back soon with your mind blowing recipes!Wishing you the same..

    Anitha..I am a fan of your cakes!
    Thank you for all those encouraging words!:)

    Thank you sagari..you too are a wonderful photographer!

    Shanks,needs not much of patience..not even half of the patience,when you made those yummy hara bhara kababs!(God!I'm sure it needs more!):)
    Wishing you the same!

    ReplyDelete
  23. You made wine at home. Great job. Wow. the crystalware is gorgeous

    ReplyDelete
  24. I have never made wine before. I should try for this christmans. Thanks for the step step explanation

    ReplyDelete
  25. hi,
    im new to your blog.. loved ur explantion on wine making. im goin to do it today itself.. would be able to tell me what temperature i need to leave the jar for fermentation? also what is the aprox alcohol content in ths wine..
    cheers..:)
    anna

    ReplyDelete
  26. Anu, Thanks for all the encouraging words.. :)

    I was unable to find out which part of the world you reside.Being in India, the temperature I could stick on to was the room temp of 29-30deg C, which is quite apt...
    lesser the outside temp, the more the days to ferment,thats all...all you have to do is taste and confirm...

    I am not sure abt the alcoholic content in this wine.Since I dint wait for long to age(4 days instead of 21)the alcohoilic content would be meagre...say..less than a percent.. :)

    Pls go through the original recipe link as well..

    Good Luck! :)

    ReplyDelete
  27. Perfect! I was searching my google reader for homemade wine recipes and zero'ed in on this (yes! I ahve you on reader). I'll definitely be trying this out for Xmas this year =)

    ReplyDelete
  28. Just wanted to let you know that the wine is fermenting, I used your recipe, I like the fact that you omitted the egg white and still ended up with a good product, can't wait for the 21 days and taste homemade wine!My first!

    ReplyDelete
  29. My wine has been distilled! so, i filtered through cheesecloth, poured into a glass jar, and added sugar, it has a very authentic kerala wine taste! I used California dark red grapes, so the wine is a very intense purple color, so i opted not to do the caramelisation. The only query I have is that it seems like I have a lot of sediment, after keeping the bottle to stand overnight, I have only a very small clear portion on the top, and a lot of fine sediment in the rest of the liquid. Do you think i should filter again, maybe with a paper filter (like coffee filter paper to remove more of the sediment).
    Or would all the sediment be a result of something that went wrong (not air tight enough, or using a spoon that was not too dry when stirring =( )
    Sorry to bug you with all these questions! Anyway, thanks for the recipe, it is a keeper, next time I am going to try with lighter colored grapes!

    ReplyDelete
  30. Thanks for all your detailed comments back to me - Bharathy! So I waited a few more days, and the powdery white sediment all came floating to the bottom of the jar. hooray! So i have a very beautiful deep purple color wine. I will admit, that it is a little on the sour side, and not as sweet as the kerala wines that i remember, and that i attribute to the american grapes, they are just not as sweet as the indian varieties. So think I will ramp up the amount of sugar added, because guess what, i am going to make another batch!! The grapes coming now in the fall season here are the light green grapes, I am going to try making some wine from them and comapre the two =). Thanks so much!

    ReplyDelete
  31. never knew achieveing this result is possible...simply gorgeous. am going to try this. between can we use instant powdered yeast for this? the granulated yeast that we get here is not very good.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Havent tried with powdered yeast Say :)..I will send you yeast when you plan to make it..will send you at the exact time as it needs to be fresh..:)
    We too dont get quality ones so I use a little more than the reg quantity.:)
    Let me know when you make it! :)

    ReplyDelete
  33. Hi Bharathy,

    Ur wine is too good n very tempting.I've two doubts.First one is it possi to prepare without yeast.Other one is should the climate be cool or hot for the fermenting as im new to cooking and even never used yeast b4.So wat kind of yeast and how to process it

    ReplyDelete
  34. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...