Wine Making

This section describes equipment and techniques that members have found useful in either making their winemaking life easier and the wine better with some really clever techniques……. without spending a whole lot of money! What struck me as I was reading many of the tips and tricks articles is that maybe I was spared several years of making “vin very ordinaire” because it might have taken me that long to discover them for myself!

There are hundreds... no thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of winemaking recipes around. Some of them are very technical, others are easy to read and occasionally you'll come across a real gem. It is this last category we're really interested in. If you know of a very special one and you want to share it (we're all home/amateur winemakers) Please contact us.

This section includes separate Winemaking guides for Grape wines and Country wines, especially written with the beginner in mind. There are a wide variety of articles covering relatively more advanced techniques such as making sparkling wines, measuring the Free SO2 content of your wine, the finer points of making white wines (pros and cons, oxidation).

The “Summary” series of articles are linked to the EDWG Home Winemaking Guide, but are also stand-alone articles covering key parts of the winemaking process such as SO2, yeast fermentation, Malolactic fermentation, Acidity and pH, Cleaning and Sanitation, Fining and Stabilisation, racking, oak and other fundamental topics. These are the basics of winemaking technique in which every winemaker, amateur or professional, must become “unconsciously” skilled.

The Eltham and District Wine Guild is passionate about promoting the art of Country Wine Making and its appreciation.

Check out our easy to read and practical Country Wine Making guide.

Our monthly meetings include a Country wine segment where we focus on its making and appreciation using the unique Eltham method of evaluation and judging.

This guide is written with the beginning, SMALL SCALE, HOME wine maker in mind and is an illustrated, master document tying together the wine making process described by other EDWG “summary” articles. You will notice some text coloured as follows, red wine making process; This is a link to another document. You can either read on, or click to be taken to another document for a more complete explanation of the concept or process.

Wine Making is a process beginning in the vineyard. This guide starts you off at the point where you pick the grapes and takes you through the individual steps to finally get your precious wine into its bottle.

The Guide presents low cost, sometimes home built equipment so that the beginner can get started with a relatively small financial commitment to expensive equipment.

It's true that wine making is a combination of practice, art and science. One selects the material based on its perceived qualities, then tweaks it based on measurement and taste. All the while you make sure that, through good practice and knowledge, only friendly microbes and yeasts visit your wine. You may give the process gentle pushes and nudges to protect it from microbes, enhance characters that are already present. You take particular care to make sure that the finished product will last for a reasonable time in the bottle until its finally consumed by you and your impressed family and guests.

There are some important differences between making red and white wines. Red wines are fermented with the skins and pulp. The whole lot is then pressed after the fermentation is complete or near complete. White wines on the other hand are normally fermented as a clear juice. That is, the grapes are first crushed, pressed with the resulting juice clarified lightly before fermentation is commenced. The Guide will point out other specific differences.

You may find it useful to refer to the diagrams summarising the red wine making process and the white wine making process.

Not every home/amateur winemaker has the possibilities to handle everything that is involved in making his or her favourite grape or country wine.

The EDWG is therefore constantly keeping an eye on those who can provide assistance. If you can believe you can be of any help for our guild members please contact us.

Every year between November and February many amateur winemakers are busy allocating and sourcing their fruit if not growing their own. This section provides information as available at this moment.

Generally interesting and funny experiences of members in making wine.

See our workshops video library

As a Winemakers Guild we believe it's important to share our love of winemaking.  To this end we run several courses to help people in their winemaking journey.

We use a hand-held Sentia device to test for:

1. 1. free sulphur dioxide (wine protection)

$6 for members, $10 for non-members

1. 2. malic acid (malolactic fermentation)

$15 for members, $25 for non-members

Send samples in by post or hand deliver

See attached flyer for more details         Eltham Wine Sentia Analysis 

Contact: Vince Conserva

Phone: 0419 375 055