Can anyone shed any light on my explosion?

Hello,
I, for the first time yesterday, have tried to brew red wine(maybe should have started with white?). I followed the instructions very carefully and left it on a tray and a paper incase of spills. Overnight it ejected the bung and airlock out of the demijohn and has sprayed red grapejuice all over my living room!(Ivory carpet and Moroccan sand walls! :-(()
I know, what was I doing putting it in there? Welll it said leave at room temperature to ferment so I did!
Can anyone shed any light on why this happened?
Cheers,
Jamie.

Grape juice is mainly simple sugars & it ferments explosively the first few days. I haven't done many wines, but ciders will do the same thing. I try to give them both about double the head room I would for an ale. Even so, I'll put them in the laundry's deep sink weather permitting.

I use a big bucket for primary fermentation with wine, and don't use an airlock until it moves into secondary. It's only in primay for about 5 days, or until s.g. is around 1.020. It's covered loosely with muslin or a dish towel, to keep fruitflies, etc. out of it. If it had a tight cover, it'd explode because of the huge amounts of co2 being released. You don't have to worry about oxygenation until it goes into secondary- in fact, in primary it needs all the o2 it can get. I stir it several times a day with a big sanitized spoon, pushing down the cap.

Room temperature is perfect for wine, assuming that you used wine yeast. After you paint the walls and clean/replace the carpet, make another batch and don't cover it. Put it in a bucket at least 50% bigger volume than your batch. For a 3-5 gallon batch, I use a 7.5 gallon bucket and it's gone all the way to the top at times. I do keep mine in the kitchen, just in case, but I've never had a mess.

Lorena

Thank you both kindly for your replies and advice. I will be much more cautious next time and I think I will invest in a big bucket for the primary fermentation process. In the mean time I have to go and get busy with my paint brush and roller!
Cheers!