Buying Wine TriviaToday I received a question from a customer about how many grapes it takes to make one 750ml bottle of wine! (This will be good trivia to share with your friends! It may also help when you're
buying wine.)
So, I asked around the wineries to find the answer.
It appears that generally
1.2 kg of grapes is required to make one 750ml bottle of wine (although this can vary depending on the winemaking technique - see below). And, I am told that 1.2kg of grapes is equivalent to 7 - 8 bunches of grapes.
There is one response in particular that I thought you'd be interested to read:
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"Generally speaking 1kg in weight translates to around 1L (litre) of fluid. In the wine world it depends on the extraction rate achieved in the winery ie. the volume that can be squeezed from the berries in the press, and how you choose to make the wine.
Our winery usually manages an extraction rate of around 70%. This means 1kg of our grapes results in approximately 700ml of juice ie. almost a bottle of wine.
Some people choose to make wine from free-run juice (juice that easily drains/runs off the crushed fruit in the press). And others choose not to press the grapes too hard - so do not achieve the same volume of juice from the same quantity of fruit.
The fruit might also have been picked early (when bunches are full of juice) or late (withered or shrivelled and not juicy). Pressing the fruit extracts flavours and characters from the skins/seeds etc which you may or may not want.
So the decision to press or not to press (and how to press) has a direct impact on the volume of wine you will achieve from your grapes. And that decision depends on the style of wine you're after, the fruit you're working with, and attitudes about winemaking techniques - another question altogether. "
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The next question though is: "how many grapes are there on a bunch?"
Well, this is what one winery has to say:
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"All varieties are different and regions will vary as to the bunch size and number of berries on a bunch.
Riesling from Clare will have around 20 berries to a bunch (weighing maybe 35g), but around 40 on a bunch of Shiraz (45g). Bunch weights will also vary from variety and region. Very hard to determine the number of berries only the weight of fruit."
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So it seems like the number of grapes per bunch is also a large variable.
Are you ready to begin
buying wine to experiment with the different tastes that come from the variety in winemaking techniques and approaches? This is one advantage of buying wine from the boutique winemakers - they share a passion in producing the best wine they can from the best quality grapes.
