How should I store my wine?
There are a number of factors that affect the quality of your wine after it has been bottled and brought home.
Temperature: Wine likes to be stored in a temperature range of 10-16 C. White wine does better cooler than red, so if you’re storing on racks, keep the whites to the bottom.
Humidity: Wine likes a fairly high humidity to make sure the corks don’t dry out. 50-70% is ideal.
Light: Wine likes it the darker the better. Red wine is in green bottles to help prevent spoilage from exposure to light.
Vibration: Vibrations are very bad for wine, and can risk restarting fermentation, spoiling the batch. Keep the bottles away from furnaces, washer/dryers and other sources of vibration.
How long can I keep my wine?
The Wine Butler recommends you drink your wine within 3-4 years if kept in ideal storage conditions.
When should I drink my wine?
At the Wine Butler we keep the acidity of our wines quite low. Additionally, we use 1/5th to 1/7th of the preservatives present in most LCBO wine. As a result our wine is drinkable quite young. However, we do recommend a minimum storage period of 2-3 months, as even a few months will bring a change to balance, texture and body that really lets the wine come into its own. For the very patient, aging and development will continue for as long as a full year of storage.
What do I do with my old bottles in the meantime?
You can absolutely re-use your bottles on your next batch of wine. We encourage it as a great way to contribute to keeping landfills empty and cellars stocked. What you’ll want to do is give them a thorough rinse with hot water as soon as you empty them out; to make sure no wine or sugars get crusted on. If you like the idea of replacing the labels and tops
So I’ve added my yeast! What’s the next step?
• We’ll take care of the brewing!
• The brewing process takes six to ten weeks.
• When your wine is ready you’ll get a notification email.
• When you get that email, use the link inside to book a bottling appointment.
What about bottles? Can I bring my own? Do you have them?
• You can bring your own bottles if they are clean (no mold, crusted wine, etc.)
• Don’t use soap or bleach to clean them; residues can spoil your wine
• You’ll be sterilizing your bottles here using our equipment before you start.
• You can use screw-top or cork bottles. We’ll provide corks.
• We also sell 750mL bottles in green or clear for $1 each.
The Brewing Process
Fermentation: The yeast will take 48 hours to multiply until it reaches a critical volume, and then it starts to work. It converts the natural sugars in the juice to alcohol. This process takes about 15 days, and outputs wine which is approximately 12% alcohol by volume.
Racking: We’ll monitor the fermentation and once the wine is ready to go, we’ll transfer the wine from the plastic pail into glass containers called ‘carboys’. This process is called racking, and has the effect of removing most of the sediment from the juice.
Fining/Cleaning: We stop the fermentation completely by killing any remaining yeast in the wine. Then, we vacuum pump all of the air from the wine which has the effect of helping the wine clear faster, taste better, and require less aging while increasing the total life of the wine. We add a clearing solution which bonds to the remaining sediment and pulls it to the bottom of the carboy.
Why Make Your Own Wine?
Handcrafted wine is easy, fun, and affordable.
Premium quality wines at an affordable price – that’s what you get when you make wine at The Wine Butler.
Want to know our secret? Grape juice from the best growing regions in California, Australia, Italy, Chile, Spain, France, and Argentina. Many of our wines have won Gold and Silver awards at international wine-tasting competitions.
We have been making wine for over 20 years. So whether it’s a full bodied Walla Walla Cabernet Merlot, a crisp Italian Reserva Pinot Grigio, or any of our 40 other varietals you crave, you can rest assured you will be drinking only the finest products, guaranteed.
Affordable Prices
Did you know when you buy a bottle of wine at the LCBO (with your hard earned after-tax dollars) that up to 70% of your purchase price goes to various taxes and levies? Sour grapes indeed! Why not get great tasting wine for 1/4 to 1/3 of what you’d pay at retail?
Fun
There is a real pride that comes with custom-vinting your own wine. Sample your wine as soon as it’s ready in our tasting room, then age your wine and experience the subtle difference in the taste that develops over time. Design your own custom wine label.
Save the Planet, Drink Wine!
We believe in minimizing our impact on the environment in all our business practices. When you make wine with us, we sterilize and reuse your bottles over and over. Plus, our wines have less than 1/7th the preservatives of those available commercially.
The Wine Making Process
Once you’ve chosen your wine, you’ll need to book an appointment to start your wine. This is a process called “dropping yeast”, and it only takes a couple of minutes. When you come in for your appointment, we’ll have the grape juice ready to go. You just have to take a small packet of yeast and add it to the juice. By doing this yourself, you avoid the taxes that the Ontario government puts on wine purchased at the LCBO.
Then you go home, put your feet up, and relax. Over the next 6-8 weeks, we take care of the intermediate processing steps like stabilizing and filtering your wine and getting it ready for bottling. When that’s done, we’ll let you know that your wine is ready to be bottled.
When you come in for your bottling appointment, we’ll sterilize your bottles for you (or you can buy new ones from us for $1/bottle), then set you up on one of our three bottling stations. As your bottles get filled, you’ll use the air-powered corker to cork them, shrink-wrap the tops in the colour of your choice, and apply your labels. You’re also welcome to sample your wine in our tasting lounge.
When Can I drink Wine? How long should I age my wine? How Long can I store it?
When should I drink my wine?
At the Wine Butler we keep the acidity of our wines quite low. Additionally, we use 1/5th to 1/7th of the preservatives present in most LCBO wine. As a result our wine is drinkable quite young. However, we do recommend a minimum storage period of 2-3 months, as even a few months will bring a change to balance, texture and body that really lets the wine come into its own. For the very patient, aging and development will continue for as long as a full year of storage.
How do I order custom wine labels?
Custom labels are available from a third party company for an additional fee. You design your own label online and it will be sent to you via courier to bring to your bottling appointment.
You can design your label online with text and images, or text with your own photo.
Please see https://www.winebutler.ca/custom-labels/
Thank you!
Cheers,
Wine Butler