As most of you have learned, by now, you spend as much time, if not more time, cleaning and sanitizer, as you do, actually making wine. Cleaning and sanitizing is one of the most important aspects of wine making and if not done properly, will result in bad wine. When done properly, your fruit will have a much better chance of becoming a wonderful wine, instead of a nice bottle of vinegar.

Wine is an interesting creation, as it is what nature wants to do with fruit, which is ferment it! With all of those yeasts (bacteria) floating around, they will attach themselves to fruit and start converting the sugars to alcohol. The bad news is that if this process happens in the presence of oxygen or if the wrong bacterium takes over, the fermented fruit begins to mold. The same thing can happen to your wine, if you do not clean and sanitize everything that touches your wine.

The interesting thing is that the alcohol will kill any bacteria that could harm a human, but it will not necessarily kill all unwanted bacteria. This is where the sanitization aspect comes into play. We want to sanitize to get rid of the unwanted bacteria so we will create a great bottle of wine.

Now that we have established the reason for sanitizing, let's discuss the best way to make sure you have killed all of the bad bacteria. The best way is to CLEAN and SANITIZE. Every wine making expert (Winexpert, WineMaker Magazine, Jack Keller, C.J.J. Berry, et al) will tell you that this is the number one mistake that home wine makers make and you need to differentiate between CLEANING and SANITIZING.

Cleaning is the process of removing all visible dirt and residue. Sanitizing is the process of killing bacteria that could adversely affect your wine. You must clean first as sanitizing dirt and residue will not do you any good. Some people talk about sterilizing, instead of sanitizing, but sterilizing is killing EVERYTHING, which is not necessary. Sanitizing kills all of the bacteria that will harm our wine and it is sufficient for our needs.

Now that we have defined the terms, let discuss which products do what. Peroxygen types (perborates and percarbonates) such as EasyClean, One Step, Straight A and B-Brite and chlorine type (cyanurates and hypochlorite) like C-Brite are cleansers. The manufacturers would like you to consider them as a sanitizer, but none of them put the word "sanitizer" on the product. The manufacture of One Step and Straight A even goes as far to strongly imply their product is a sanitizer, but stops short of the claim as their products are not approved by the FDA as a sanitizer (http://www.ecologiccleansers.com/faq.html). Some people also claim that beach is a sanitizer; however, as with the others, the word "sanitizer" does not appear on the product. As a result, I treat all of these products as cleansers, only.

Sulfites like Sodium Metabisulfite and Potassium Metabisulfite are sanitizers when mixed in the proper ratios. 3 tablespoons of either Sodium or Potassium Metabisulfite mixed with 1 gallon of water will yield a 1.25% sulfite solution, will make an effective sanitizer.

Based on my research, I have concluded that any of the cleansers listed above will probably work MOST of the time; however, there is no guarantee any of them will work EVERY time. I have way too much time, effort and money invested in every batch of wine that I make to take a chance on sanitizing. As a result, below is my recommendation for CLEANING and SANITIZING:

1. Clean all of you wine making equipment, bottles, corks and hands with one of the cleansers above.
2. Rinse everything you cleaned with clean water.
3. Sanitize all of you wine making equipment, bottles, corks and hands with a 1.25% sulfite solution. The recommended minimum contact time is 5 minutes to ascertain that all bacteria have been killed.
4. Allow the sanitized items to drip dry. No rinsing is needed.

I know that a lot of you have only used one of the cleansers listed above and had no problems. I can also say that I have only used cleansers and THOUGHT I was doing a good job, so here is an anecdote. Tonight, I was looking through my wine cellar to determine which bottles I was going to enter into the WineMaker Magazine Competition. During my search, I found a 2002 Australian Chardonnay and I was thrilled! This was one of my very first batches and this wine had a story, as it was my first white wine. I was so excited. It had been stored in my wine cellar for 4 years where it was dark, cool and away from vibration, so I knew it was going to be wonderful. It wasn't! It was not yet spoiled, but well on its way. We threw it out! Since it had been stored properly, the only thing that could have happened was lack of sanitization. Moral of story, SANITIZE!

With all of this being said, I know there will be wine makers that disagree with me: that think I am being way too cautious. To them, all I have to say is one thing. "My job is to educate wine makers to help them make the best possible wine with the highest possibility of success. My way may seem like overkill, but it will work, every time."

Clean and sanitize and you will greatly improve your chances of making that great bottle of wine.