My fall hobby has been harvesting four trees worth of plums to make plum wine. The first step was to peel and pit approximately 20 lbs of fruit and put it in a plastic bucket. With the fruit, we mixed in the sugar, pectic enzyme, campden tablets, and a few gallons of water, and let the mixture sit for a day. After 24-36 hours, we added yeast that had been started with some warm water, honey, and yeast nutrient.
The mixture was bubbling frequently within 24 hours, and it wasn't very pretty looking. The bucket remains sealed with an airlock that lets the carbon dioxide produced by the yeast escape, but it does not let air or other beasties into the wine. I would open the bucket about once a day to stir in the head.
After 5-6 days, we poured the contents of the bucket through a coarse
filter bag (cheescloth) into a glass carboy, and squeezed the juice from
the pulp. After a couple of hours, it was bubbling strong again, and
now we could see the activity. It's alive! The fruit was circulating
in what looked like convection currents that were caused by the mass
collecting CO2 gas, floating to the top, and releasing the bubbles as
it neared the surface.
This went on for about 3 weeks and the and the bubbling airlock slowed to once every few seconds. At this point we siphoned off all of the liquid except the sludge on the bottom into another carboy (this process is known as "racking" the wine). At this point the wine was very dry and definately alcoholic. The taste of yeast was still present and it was a bit harsh. It's not what I would call a nice glass of table wine. I've heard that adding some sugar and stabilizer towards the end will mellow it out, and that some of the strange flavors will mellow with age as well.
