Your First Wine — from a carton of grape juice

First time

In season January to December · makes 4.5 L · target OG 1.070

The gentlest possible start: no fruit to prepare, available any time of year, hard to get wrong. It exists to teach the one habit that makes every other recipe work — clean equipment.

You will need

Pure red or white grape juice (100% juice, NO preservative)4 L
Sugar (optional, for a little more strength)up to 500 g
Wine yeast1 sachet

Method

1
The whole lesson of your first wine is ONE thing: sanitising. Nothing else matters as much. Wash your demijohn, airlock, spoon and funnel, then rinse them with a sanitiser (a campden solution, or a no-rinse brewing sanitiser) and let them drip dry. Do not skip this — nearly every 'my wine went wrong' story is a dirty bucket.
2
Check the juice has NO preservative on the label (no potassium sorbate) — preserved juice is designed not to ferment, and it won't.
3
Pour the juice into your sanitised demijohn. Stir in the sugar if you want a stronger wine, or leave it for a light one.
4
Sprinkle in the yeast, fit the airlock, and put it somewhere warm and out of the sun.
5
It will bubble within a day or two. When the bubbling stops (a week or three), the wine is dry.
6
Leave it to settle clear, pour it carefully off the sludge into bottles, and you have made wine. Nothing foraged, nothing to strain — just clean gear and patience.

What this one teaches you

· Sanitising properly

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An original MakeWine recipe.