Essentially you get grapes or (some other fruit) and crush them up and add yeast to the mixture.

For red wine you leave peals in the goo.

For white wine you take the peels out.

You have some control over flavor by choosing the yeast and grape variety. There are also some chemicals and flavoring extracts you can add.

As a general rule, the longer you leave the mixture fermenting the longer its local ecology will work on the substrate increasing flavor complexity. You can use a hydrometer at the beginning to estimate the sugar content and then monitor the change in fluid density to determine when fermentation has ceased and also what your alcohol content is. You can boost alcohol content somewhat by boosting the sugar content. But there is an upper-end for sugar content beyond which yeast will not ferment and you end up with something Manischewitz (www.manischewitzwine.com/products/products.htm) might sell.

Once its filtered and bottled it is fairly stable, depending on how much and what kinds of contaminating bacteria are present.

Its easy to produce a modest sweet wine. Its much more difficult to produce mediocre dry wine. A good dry requires a lot of effort and patience.

That's why I brew beer. Its easy to make consistent above-average beer. Lake Woebegone beer--all above average.

Botnst