Wine Informative Speech

1260 Words6 Pages
Winemaking Specific Purpose: To inform my audience about the process of winemaking. Central Idea: The winemaking process consist of harvesting the grapes, crushing and pressing, fermentation, clarification, and aging and bottling the wine. Introduction I. An ancient Persian fable tributes the discovery of wine to a princess who had disappointed her king and was seeking to poison herself with spoiled grapes. Rather than ending her life, she experienced the intoxicating feeling that a lot of us know as a “buzz” (Song of the Vine). II. Whether this was really how wine was discovered, wine has inspired humans for years to explore the winemaking process. III. Like the Persian princess, I also tasted spoiled grapes by accident that came…show more content…
The first step in the process of winemaking is harvesting the grapes. A. Knowing when to harvest the grapes is critical. 1. The grapes must be harvested at the perfect time or the wine will not turn out properly. Wine writer and enthusiast Jamie Goode states, “The grapes as they are harvested contain the potential of the wine: you can make a bad wine from good grapes, but not a good wine from bad grapes” (Goode). 2. Before the expected harvest time which is between September and early October, winemakers will begin tasting their grapes a few weeks in advance and continue repeatedly sampling them until its time to pluck the grapes from the vine (Harvest Information). 3. There are several qualitative indicators that winemakers consider. a. The grapes should be soft. This means that the grape’s pulp should give a little when the grape is squeezed (Harvest Information). b. Grapes that aren’t ready to be harvested are usually green and taste like a pepper or similar to asparagus (Harvest Information). Ripe grapes should have a taste similar to a cherry (Harvest Information). c. Also, most of the grape seeds themselves should be…show more content…
Machine harvesting is becoming more popular because it is cheaper and faster than harvesting by hand (Goode). a. The machine harvester plucks the grapes from the vine and empties them into large containers. b. Then, the grapes are inspected for raisins, remaining stems, leaves, and rotten grapes (Goode). 2. Harvesting grapes can also be done by hand. a. Hand picked grapes are harvested as bunches rather than individual grapes. b. Similarly to machine-harvested grapes, hand-picked grapes must also be inspected for quality after the harvest (Goode). c. Then, the grapes are sent through a machine that removes the stems. II. The second step in the process of winemaking is crushing and pressing the grapes. A. Grapes are crushed and pressed in either a mechanical winepress or foot trodden to extract their juices before fermentation. 1. White wine and red wine go through the same process until the crushing and pressing steps. For white wine, the grapes will be pressed almost immediately after crushing to prevent any undesirable red color (Lahey). 2. For red wine, the grapes are kept in contact with their skins to bring about the red color and flavor allowing them to ferment before being pressed
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