WINE03120 - Production process: stages of process

The basic wine production process consists of the following stages:

• grapes are pressed in a wine press to extract the juice
• the juice is placed in a fermenting vessel and yeast is added to convert the natural sugars in the juice to alcohol; this process is know as fermentation
• when fermentation is complete, the wine is filtered to remove any impurities
• the wine is then clarified by the addition of finings
• the wine is bottled

The duty rates for wine are structured in bands depending on its strength and whether it is sparkling or not.

The duty bands can be found in section 5 of Notice 163 (GOV.UK).