Ingredients
Makes ten 750 ml-bottles wine. Roughly one kg grape makes one bottle of wine.
10 Kg black or red grapes
1 Cup honey or sugar
1 Teaspoon wine yeast or regular bread yeast
1/2 Teaspoon cloves
1 Teaspoon cardamom powder
Directions
Preparation
Wash grapes thoroughly with cold water and spread them on kitchen towels on the counter or in the sun to dry.
Remove the grape stems and keep a couple to be added to the mixture
Wash, dry, and sanitize a 20-litre pail or a fermentation jug
Fermentation
Crash the grapes in a blender adding honey and pour the mixture (called MUST) into the fermentation jug. Crashing releases the grape juice for better fermentation and the skin colour that enhances the wine colour. If the grapes are not seedless you need to use another option to crash the grapes. You could use your feet by stepping on the grapes or use your hands. The industry uses a mechanical crasher.
Add yeast, cardamom, cloves, a couple of grape stems, to the mixture and stir well.
Cover with a cheese cloth and place in a warm place.
After a couple of days the fermentation will start and bobbles appear at the surface of the mixture.
Stir frequently every day to let the fermentation gases to be exhausted.
After 7 to 10 days period you will see a change on the surface of the mixture. Bobbles are not appearing anymore and the surface of the mixture become clear liquid.
At this point the fermentation is almost completed and you need to stop the process and to filter out the wine liquid
Filtration
Filter out the wine liquid from the solid materials using cheese cloth or similar items.
Aging
At this stage the liquid has to be isolated from air and be kept in a dark cool place. Pour filtered liquid into a 10 litre carboy or a similar container. Tight with a rubber stopper with twin bubble airlock to let the gases (if any) to exhaust but prevents the air (oxygen) to reach to the liquid. The liquid should rest in this condition for at least one month. You will notice that the wine becomes clear and the sediments settle down to the bottom of the carboy.
Bottling
Wash, dry, and sterilize the wine bottles. You could use an oven with 175 degree Fahrenheit (80 Centigrade) to sanitize the bottles for about 5 minutes. Corks can be sanitize in a microwave for a minute. Use alcohol swabs for bottle caps with metals.
Suction the wine from the carboy into the wine bottles
Cork bottles with a corker and keep them in a dark-cool place for at least another 6 months.
Enjoy It!
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