Winery head explains process

 For winemaking, the secret is in the grape, explained Jim McClanathan.

McClanathan, general manager of Cypress Vineyards, made a presentation on how the Wagram-based winery makes wine to the Laurinburg Rotary Club.

The local vineyard grows Muscadine grapes, a variety of the vine fruit that is native to North Carolina.

It is one of the few varieties of grape that will grow in the warmer, sandier climate of the North carolina Sandhills region.

The making of the wine begins with harvest, which happens during autumn.

"We have two varieties of wine we make that are produced from hand-picked, selectively-picked grapes"

They use something called "free-run juice" for this, which is grape juice made by separating the the skins and stems from the juice.

The other wines use mechanically-picked fruit.

The grapes are taken from the fields to the presser/destemmer, McClanathan explained.

"The grapes are then run through some fingers that basically crack the grapes open."

The grape-pulp is then sent into a press, which McClanathan described as "a large drum with an air bladder on it."

He explained that the bladder inflates, which puts pressure on the grapes and forces the juice out.

The juice is pumped into the fermentation tanks where the winery tests the sugar content. He explained that this lets the winery decide what kind of wine can be made from each batch of juice.

McClanathan said the difference between homemade and professional wine is the consistency of the outcomes - he credits testing the sugar level with this difference.

The next step is to add sugar.

McClanathan said that muscadine grapes generally have a sugar level of 16 to 19 percent, which is too low to make good wine.

He said they have to add sugar to get to 21 percent, which is the desired level for winemaking.

The next step is to add yeast to the mix.

The yeast processes the sugar into alcohol.

"When the alcohol content gets to 12 to 13 percent, it kills the yeast," McClanathan said. He explained that at this point, all of the sugar should be gone to make good wine.

The fermentation process takes about 14 days, he said.

The next step is racking the wine.

During this step, wine is pumped off the top of the vat, leaving behind sediment. They then remove the sediment and put the wine back in the tank.

He said they generally rack wine once a month for three months.

`The next step is cold-stabalization.

Cypress Bend cools its wine to 28 degrees to let the tartaric acid settle out of the wine.

From there, they bottle the wine.

Cypress Bend is a relatively new venture, McClanathan said.

"The farm started about 8 years ago when Dan and Tina Smith returned to Dan's family farm," he said.

They decided to start a vineyard, growing muscadine grapes.

They opened the winery four years ago.

Right now, the vineyard gets a yield of 210 tons of grapes from roughly 35 acres and the winery is expected to produce 9,000 cases of wine this year.

He said that, with proper farming and care, the yield will increase by around 10 percent a year over a ten year period.

He said the farm expects to reach its peak of 300 tons per year in four or five years.

McClanathan also briefly commented on the health attributes of wine.

He said that scientific studies have shown that red wine is good for people's hearts because of the high number of antioxidants, especially from a compound called resveratrol.

The muscadine grape haas ten times the normal amount of resveratrol, McClanathan said.

He said that this has been good for business - pharmaceutical companies buy the grape skins from Cypress Bend because of the high demand for resveratrol products.

McClanathan added that he is a believer, taking muscadine-based tablets every day for health benefits.

He boasted that he hadn't had a cold in four years, which he attributes to the muscadine grape.