Why Make Organic Wine?

Series Summary

The word “sommelier” comes from the Middle French word for the keeper of the pack animals. Traditionally, a sommelier is a wine steward (a respected position in fine restaurants) with the responsibilities of procuring popular or rare wines, rotating and maintaining the wine cellar, and aiding customers with wine choices. Today, elite restaurants may hire sommeliers for other items or special services on the menu, such as one sommelier for liquor, one for cigars, one for pastries, etc. Wine experts around the world have developed their own culture, and becoming a sommelier encompasses being trained in wines and also in this refined culture of wine.

In this free wine making video series Jeff Belli, organic gardener and business owner, teaches you how to make homemade fruit wine. Jeff walks you through selecting fruit and planning your mine, mashing and processing the fruit, and mixing the ingredients. You will learn all about the digesting and fermentation phase of the wines, and Jeff gives you the signs to look for to know when your fruit wine is done. Finishing with tips on filtering, bottling, and corking, Jeff offers all you need to know.

Video Transcript

"Okay, today we're going to show you how we go about making wine. And we'd like to talk about why we make wine and what's in the wine. And in the wine we put fruit, and in this fruit is the nutrients and enzymes. And so in order to capture these in the wine and preserve them, that's the purpose of making wine. It captures the nutrients and it captures the enzymes in there. And the alcohol that's creating from making the wine is the ingredient that preserves them. And so making the wine isn't always about the alcohol, it's more about the nutrients and the enzymes that are preserved in the alcohol so that whenever we're ready, instead of freezing or canning or putting it in the refrigerator, we can now put it in this form of wine, put it in bottles, put it on our shelf. And at any time, we can enjoy the nutrients and the enzymes that are in the wine an also have a great time doing it."