Follow along to see how red wine is made, step-by-step, from grapes to glass. Surprisingly, not much has changed since we started making wine 8,000 years ago.

Red winemaking differs from white winemaking in one important way: the juice ferments with grape skins to dye it red.

Of course, there’s more to red winemaking than the color. Learning about the process reveals secrets about quality and taste that will improve your palate. So, let’s walk through each of the steps of how red wine is made from grapes to glass.

Step one—harvest the grapes.

Red wine is made with black (aka purple) wine grapes. In fact, all the color you see in a glass of red wine comes from anthocyanin (red pigment) found in black grape skins.

During the grape harvest, the most important thing to do is to pick the grapes at perfect ripeness. It’s critical because grapes don’t continue to ripen after they’ve been picked