IF PATIENCE IS YOUR VIRTUE, TRY WINEMAKING AT HOME.

Byline: Mark Gerard Special to the Daily News

Are you interested in a case of good wine for $2 a bottle?

That's about what it costs to make your own from the juice of California wine grapes.

Winemaking at home is simple, requiring only a few pieces of inexpensive equipment. The result, if you use a craftsmanlike approach and high-quality juice, is comparable to store-bought wine.

Winemaking involves just enough applied science to be interesting, but not so much as to be tedious. Basically, you add yeast to fruit juice. Yeast will feed on sugar compounds in the juice and convert them to alcohol and carbon dioxide. In other words, yeast eats sugar, excretes alcohol and passes gas.

Traditionally, wine is made from fresh wine-grape juice called crush. In the fall, many winemaking supply stores order crush for home-brewers. All the popular varietals are available: cabernet sauvignon, merlot, colombard, chablis and more. Harvest depends on the weather, but generally the crush arrives at the beginning of October. If you miss the fresh crush at harvest time, you buy canned wine-grape juice at winemaking stores any time of year.

Fermenting and bottling a case - five gallons - of wine requires a few hours during each of four days spread over six months. Besides patience, all that is necessary between steps is a cool, dark place to store your ``working'' brew.

If you're using a canned wine grape juice, you'll need to add sugar in an amount specified on the label to achieve 12 percent alcohol in your finished wine. Don't worry that you'll get a sweet wine by adding sugar. The yeast will efficiently convert it all to alcohol. If you buy fresh crush, it is usually sugar-balanced to yield an appropriate alcohol level. An 11 percent to 12 percent alcohol content is important because alcohol stabilizes wine, protecting it from organisms that will spoil it.

For the same reason - bacterial contamination - you should sterilize everything that touches the juice. Use potassium metabisulfite diluted in warm water; it's sold in conveniently measured doses called Campden tablets.

The fermenting juice is magic to watch because it begins thick, syrupy and sweet, then slowly transforms into dry-tasting wine with a viscosity similar to water.

Fermentation is a prolonged chemical reaction that takes place at room temperature. Most of it happens in the first few days after adding yeast to juice. To contain five gallons of fermenting crush, you need an 8- to 10-gallon, industrial-grade plastic food container or an unused plastic trash can. Stir daily and soon a thick foam head will develop.

After six or seven days in this primary fermenter, the turbulent brewing is finished. Siphon the frothy juice into a clean five-gallon carboy - the type of container that usually holds bottled water. As you siphon, filter the juice through cheesecloth. This is called ``racking.''

The balance of the fermentation must occur in an airtight container. Top your carboy with an air lock - a cheap, water-filled device that blocks air from entering the bottle, but allows bubbles, the carbon dioxide - to escape.

Let your airtight jug sit in the dark for three weeks at room temperature or cooler. The air lock will bubble gently. Rack it again and let it sit for three months.

Technically, it is now wine. The color will be crisp, translucent and inviting. The aroma is fruity. The taste at this stage, though, will be unpromising. Reds may taste like unsweetened prune juice with a medicinal kick, and whites like aviation fuel. Be patient. Indulging in young wine can bequeath a tenacious hangover. It's aging in the bottle that will develop body and bouquet in your wine.

Wine bottles are free if you recycle empties from store-bought wine. Have friends save them for you. You'll be surprised at how quickly two dozen accumulate. Restaurants are also a good source of empties.

Siphon your wine into clean bottles, filling each to within 2-1/2 inches of the rim. A simple hand-operated wine corker - less than $20 - will insert the corks and seal your wine from air. Be sure to buy new corks; don't use old ones.

Store your corked bottles on their sides in a dark place. Three months of aging is good, six months to a year is better. The magic that converts raw fruit to agreeable wine can't be rushed.

Read all about it Some resource books on making your own wine:

``From Vines to Wines,'' by Jeff Cox (Harper & Row).

``Wine-making at Home,'' by Bruce Palmer (Workman Publishing).

``Winemaking at Home,'' by Homer Hardwick (Funk & Wagnalls).

``Amateur Winemaking and Brewing,'' by Duncan Gillespie (Hodder and Stoughton).

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