Obtain the Fruit
Always use the best
Finding your fruit can sometimes be one of the hardest parts of making a good wine. It is very important to start out with good fruit. If you use poor quality fruit/grapes to make your wine1 you will end up with poor quality wine. It is that simple.
Get to know your climate
All of the various types of fruits used to make wine will ripen at different times throughout the year so it is very important to be in tune with the natural environment and the climate you are harvesting your crop from. Your crop will not always ripen at the same time every year. The timing of when you can pick your fruit can be changed very easily by slight changes in soil fertility, precipitation, temperature, pruning and sun exposure. Due to this fluctuation it is imperative to monitor your crop for seasonal availability. When the opportunity for harvesting arises it is vital to get out there and get it before it becomes spoiled.
Get prepared
Harvesting can also be a very stressful time of year. All season you have been waiting for your crop to become available to harvest and the window of opportunity to do so is very brief and can be missed quite easily if you do not have enough support to harvest it in time. Before setting out to make a batch of wine you want to first establish how much of a crop you will need to harvest before continuing on to your wine. Will you need 4lbs, or 100lbs? Based on how much you need, you will either have to pre-order your fruit or ensure you have enough people to help you with harvesting the fruits. The last thing you want to happen is to get to harvest time and not have enough hours in the day to pick the entire crop you need. Make sure you have lots of helpers/friends ready to get out and harvest when you give the word.
Grow it yourself
If you are planning on growing your own crops for the purposes of making wine make sure to visit the “Our Crops” section of this website to learn more about how you can grow specific varieties of fruits.
Once you have collected all of your fruit it is now time to move onto primary fermentation.
1For the purpose of simplicity, I will be using the word ‘wine’ for both vinavera wine, fruit wine, etc. It should be noted that the word ‘wine’ should only be used when referring to wine made with grapes. Wine made from any other fruit type should be called that which it is being made from. Eg. Blueberry wine, banana wine, etc.