A Little History Lesson


The making of wine – to many – has held some sort of mystery.  Surely not just anyone could create such excellent vintages as the old masters from France and Italy.  They've been at it for hundreds of years and make thousands of gallons at a time!

To show you just how easy it will be to make your own wine let’s follow the steps of these experts:

Wine is made from grapes. At a winery, the grapes are crushed, and pressed, and the juice is gathered into a large vat (called a fermenter). Natural yeast, which was on the skin of the grapes, is now free to begin fermenting the sugars in the juice, turning them into alcohol. After the fermentation has finished, the winery drains the wine into a sealed container where it can clear and age. Once the wine has cleared, it gets filtered, put into bottles, corked, labelled and boxed. Sounds easy, right?

Well, it is. We left out some of the details, but in essence, that is how wine is made. And, anyone can do it. With the inception of On Premises Wine-making facilities (or UVin), it has become even easier.

Here’s how: 
Wine kit manufacturers take the same grape juice, and pasteurize it so that the yeast doesn't activate. Often the juice is concentrated to remove the water, and is then aseptically packaged in bags or pails, preserving all the flavours and aromas of the original grapes.

When you start a batch of wine at a UVin store, the concentrated juice is poured into a pail, and purified water added back, so essentially you have the same pure juice that the winery started out with.  Add some yeast, and the next thing you know you have wine!

So, for you as an onsite winemaker the steps are simple:

  1. Choose the type of wine you want to purchase.  Our staff can help you to make this decision with a few questions and a glance through the brochures.

  2. Add the supplied ingredients to the fermentation container, starting the production of alcohol.

  3. Return to the premises 5 to 8 weeks later (depending on the kit you chose) and bottle your wine.   Our state-of-the-art equipment makes this an incredibly easy and fun process which will take approximately 30 minutes per batch of wine.

  4. Take your wine home, let it age for as long as possible (1 month at least we hope), then enjoy !