Although wines can typically be made out of any fruit juice, most wines are made from good old-fashioned grapes and grape juice. Besides the grapes, factors such as the strain of yeast, soil conditions and climate also contribute to the taste and overall quality of the wine.

The process of making wine begins at the vineyard, where the grapes must be cared for and managed in a very specific manner in order to ensure their quality. Adequate levels of water and sunlight are important for the growing of grapes, as poor levels of sunlight will result in grapes that do not or cannot ripen properly. The longer the grapes hang on their vine, the sweeter they become as their sugar levels tend to rise as they ripen. Once the grapes have ripened, they are ready for the next step in the winemaking process: the harvest.

Harvesting of grapes can be done either by machine or by hand. After removing the grapes from the vine, it is important that they be turned into wine as soon as possible. For this, wine makers make use of a machine known as a crusher. The crusher does just what its name implies: it crushes the grapes in order to release their juice. At the same time as the grapes are being crushed, the grape stems and skins, along with other non-grape material, are all separated from the juice by the same machine.

After being crushed, the grape juice is then ready for fermentation. Fermentation is the process by which sugars are converted into alcohol. In order to achieve this change, the winemaker adds yeast to the grape juice. The yeast consumes the sugars in the juice and creates several by-products in the process, including heat, carbon dioxide gas and alcohol. After fermentation, the original grape juice resembles something closer to wine.

It is also during the fermentation process that wines get their individual red or white color, as the juice from the crushed grapes is allowed to either sit in contact with the grape skins to make a red wine, or by itself to make a white wine.

To make a white wine, winemakers first remove the grape skins from the grape juice. The juice is then placed in stainless steel tanks, where it is allowed to ferment. In the case of wines like Chardonnay, winemakers often make use of oak barrels, in order to give the wine a greater, more complex flavor. Winemakers have more choices when it comes to making a red wine. For the fermentation process, winemakers can use stainless steel tanks, oak barrels, or even the more traditional open-concrete fermenters. The depth of color in a red wine is determined by the amount of time that the juice is allowed to ferment alongside the grape skins.

Following the process of fermentation, the winemaker must then remove all of the unwanted material from the wine, this includes the dead yeast cells and any other material that might contribute to making the wine appear murky or cloudy, using both filtration and clarification processes.

The process following filtration and clarification is known as aging or maturation. Typically, wines are allowed to mature or age in oak barrels, which can vary in size depending on the amount of oak flavor that the winemaker wishes to give the wine. Usually, the smaller the barrel, the more oak flavor the wine will have. For lower-quality wines, winemakers sometimes use oak chips during the maturation process in order to the wine a hint of oak flavor. Although some white wines are allowed to mature in oak barrels, they are most often reserved for the maturation of red wines. The oak flavor of a red wine is also due in part to the amount of time that the wine is allowed to mature in the barrel. The longer the time spent in the oak barrel, the stronger the oak taste.

The final two steps in the winemaking process include blending and bottling. During the blending process, winemakers actually blend several batches of wine in order to create a batch with a particular style, flavor, or composition. After the blending process, the wine is ready to be bottled. Here, the wine is essentially poured into pre-selected bottles, corked, capped, labeled, packaged and shipped out to retailers. The bottling process can be very disruptive to the flavors of a wine and as a result, some wines are actually allowed to sit and mature for a period of time before being shipped out, although most wines are simply shipped-out after the final bottling process.