Wine making has been around for thousands of years. In its basic form, wine production is a natural process that requires very little human intervention. Mother Nature provides everything that is needed to make wine; it is up to humans to embellish, improve, or totally obliterate what nature has provided, to which anyone with extensive wine tasting experience can attest.
There are five basic stages or steps to making wine: harvesting, crushing and pressing, fermentation, clarification, and then aging and bottling. Undoubtedly, one can find endless deviations and variations along the way. In fact, it is the variants and little deviations at any point in the process that make life interesting. They also make each wine unique and ultimately contribute to the greatness or ignominy of any particular wine. The steps for making white wine and red wine are basically the same, with one exception. The making of rosé wines and fortified or sparkling wines is also another matter; both require additional human intervention to succeed.
