How-To: Make Your Own Wine

Making wine is a complicated, precise process. It's possible to do it at home, but sometimes it's good to have help from an expert. Some wineries, especially urban wineries, will offer up their facilities and expertise to assist you in crafting your own wine. For a flat price, the winery will help you select and process the grapes, and then monitor the process to ensure your wine is a success. Often, the winery will provide educational classes or lectures to teach you about the art of making wine. There are some things to keep in mind though.

• It's expensive. At thousands of dollars for a barrel of wine, its not a cheap alternative to buying from the wine store. Many customers come in as larger groups in order to pool their resources to share a barrel.

• It's a lot of wine. With a skilled winemaker helping out, you can expect a good product. But a barrel translates to more than 200 bottles of wine.

• It's a long process. With barrel aging, a red wine may take as long as 12 months.

Wine Barrels