How to Make Wine from Grape Juice

Learning how to make wine from grape juice brings you the popular qualities of Vino, goon or nectar of the Gods, whatever you like to call it, right to your home in an extremely quick and easy way. Wine is one of the most beloved alcoholic drinks around the world so who wouldn’t want to know how to make it from simple store-bought juice?

There is something quite wonderful about sitting down to enjoy a flavorful glass of red with dinner, or sipping on a fragrant mulled wine during the holiday period. In fact, enjoying wine (responsibly) can be seen as a tradition – and part of many cultures around the world.

Many people choose to purchase bottled or boxed wine from the store, but very few know that you can actually make your own wine from juice!

It’s actually a very simple, fun process that’s also very economical and could save you plenty of money in comparison to purchasing branded bottles – as well as being highly entertaining. Although I’ve already covered how to make homemade wine the traditional way, you can read on below for a special guide on how to make wine from juice!

Making Wine from Grape Juice

Let’s start with the required ingredients and equipment. If you’re looking for easy homemade wine recipes from juice then you’re in luck – this one is not only simple to follow and easy to make but also very fast and requires only a handful of items.

These are also the pillars of any recipe of this style, so others will use most of these items (if not the exact same) in other quantities.

• One 5 L bottle of water (1.3 Gallons)
• One 2 L bottle (0.5 Gallons) – preferably made of glass
• A plastic funnel
• 4 liters of grape juice – red or white
• 500 grams of white sugar (1 pound)
• A sachet of a potent wine yeast

Check out the home wine making supplies article to get all of these online, through amazon, at a very affordable price.

Even though this recipe uses the metric system, for my fellow American readers it’ll be useful to know that it’s simply a grape juice wine recipe for 1 gallon (5 Liters is about 1.3 Gallons). Now that you’re ready, let’s learn how to make wine from juice!

How to Make Homemade Wine From Grape Juice

Although many people wonder how to make wine from grape juice at home and even think it’s difficult, you can rest assured that it’s quite straightforward, fast and fun. Simply follow these instructions and you’ll end up with a smoothly potent nectar that’ll impress you with its quality.

1. Start by making sure that the grape juice is at room temperature. If it’s been in the fridge, allow it to sit out to warm up before starting the process.
2. Pour the water out of the 5L water bottle (don’t waste it, you can save this for later).
3. Pour one liter of the grape juice into the empty water bottle and then add 1 teaspoon of the yeast into the bottle.
4. Close the lid back onto the water bottle and make sure that it is incredibly tight before shaking it up as hard as you can for at least 3 minutes.
5. Store the bottle in a room in dark place.
6. The next day, or whenever you notice that the grape juice in the water bottle has started bubbling, add the remaining grape juice to the water bottle, and tighten the cap and then loosen a little slow to allow the carbon dioxide gas to escape.
7. Empty the 2L bottle and then pour 500g of the white sugar into it.
8. Add in around 1L of drinking water to the sugar, place the lid on and then shake until all of the sugar has been fully dissolved.
9. Allow your mixtures and concoctions to ferment for 4 or 5 days.
10. Add in another liter of the grape juice as well as the sugar syrup into your 5L bottle that you started making all the wine in. The liquid should just below the neck of the bottle. Tighten the cap on the bottle shake so everything is mixed up properly and then again slightly loosen the cap.
11. Wait another 5 days for the fermenting process to happen. You’ll know when grape juices turns into wine when you start noticing a lot of bubbling. Sometimes it can take longer even up to 2 or 3 weeks. The wine will be ready to enjoy once all this bubbling has completely stopped.
12. Place the bottle into your fridge as the cold temperature will help to further halt the fermentation process. Allow it to sit there for 3 days.
13. You are now ready to enjoy the wine! Red is best served at room temperature, so keep it out but make sure it’s stored in the dark place. Your wine will probably be somewhere between 11% and 13% alcohol. You can get creative and make your own easy homemade wine recipes from juice by adding in herbs, spices and other common extras for body like raisins and yes – even bananas.

And there you have it, a high-quality grape juice wine recipe that’s easy to follow, fast to make and that delivers an outstanding result as well. For those of you that are looking for the popular Welchs grape juice wine recipe – look no further, you can use this one with it as well.

Here’s a fantastic video on it – easy to follow, effective and humorous too:

As you can see, it’s easier than it looks!

Tips for Making Wine From Juice

To get the best flavors when making wine from juice, you should only use the best wine yeasts. If you use baking yeast or brewer’s yeast it can lead to an unfavorable result that has odd aromas and a weird taste.

Make sure that you choose a grape juice that doesn’t have any preservatives or additives as they can disrupt the whole process and taste, as well as being unhealthy. If you really want to go all out and have the best tasting wine possible then be sure to use juice from actual grapes – you can buy them and crush them at home very easily.

If you’re feeling adventurous, you can also use other fruit juices, such as pineapple, apple, raspberry and more. Making wine from juice concentrate is easier, but it wont work as well as if you had juiced the fruits yourself, as you’d expect, so always try to go the extra mile and use juice from fresh fruit instead.

Here’s another great video on how to make wine from juice that shows a lot of great little tricks you can apply yourself:

It’s quite easy to follow, the wine reaches fantastic alcohol percentages and the process uses great equipment as well (glass instead of plastic, among others).

Why Make Homemade Wine from Juice?

There are several reasons why making your own wine from juice is a fantastic activity. Not only do you save a lot of money if you regularly drink wine, but it’s also a fun and enjoyable hobby that’ll give you the necessary knowledge to start serious winemaking in the future, if you want to.

Now remember, even though making wine from juice concentrate – or any other juice – is pretty easy, certain countries have laws and regulations when it comes to brewing your own alcohol.

While it’s most likely not prohibited, it can still have some ramifications depending on where you live.

Just to be safe, make sure to check with your local laws!

Conclusion

There you have it folks – the complete process on how to make wine from juice at home. Like other wines, your homemade wine from juice will age and taste better over time (aging makes the wine smoother in taste), so sometimes it’s worth waiting another month until you enjoy the fruits of your labor.

There are many more easy homemade wine recipes from juice that you can use (from apple to blackberry and many other fruit juices) and they all follow the overall process that we’ve seen in this article. Once you get the hang of it is actually pretty easy and you can make large batches (simply triple the recipe or more) and enjoy this homemade wine from juice concentrate recipe at a later time instead of having to do it repeatedly.

Thanks as always for reading and have fun!