Make Your Own Wine at Home
Photograph from home winemaking tutorial site, Cook Prairie Wines
It's a little more of an upscale DIY project than, say, baking your bread or growing your own garden, but wine enthusiasts too can turn their love into a full-fledged hands-on hobby by making wine at home:
"The growth and interest in wine generally over the last decade has really fueled an interest in winemaking as a hobby," says Brad Ring, publisher of Winemaker magazine. "With the greater availability of grapes, equipment and information, it’s come on strong as a hobby."
[...] All of which means that you don’t need to buy a vineyard in Tuscany or the Loire Valley to create your own label of succulent red or crisp white. In fact, all you need these days is a few hundreds dollars, some space in your garage or basement, and a little spare time.
Winemaking may sound intimidating, but the way Ring describes the process, it sounds quite simple: make juice from grapes, ferment it, ferment it again, strain it, store it, and bottle it. Grapes are available year-round, and winemaking supply stores even settle bottled grape juice made specially for the task. Check out the many home winemaking websites for more information.
Should you end up feeling particularly pleased and ambitious about your finished product, you can even enter it in amateur winemaking competitions, like the annual Winemaker International Amateur Wine Competition.
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4 Comments:
As someone who both homebrews beer and makes wine, I can say that while making wine is technically easier, it's far more finicky. You can abuse the brewing process and still have passable beer, but wine making requires a good attention to detail lest you create some nasty hooch.
rheogs at 3:08PM on 07/01/08
rheogs, what kind of wine do you make? What grape varietals do you use, and where do you get them? Do you age your wine in wood, glass, stainless? I'd love to know!
simon at 3:34PM on 07/01/08
we did this in AP bio my senior year of high school...and our teacher let us drink it secretly...it was definitely not good, but it was tasty enough for us kids who were just excited to be allowed to drink in class.
crafty at 6:48PM on 07/01/08
I've been active in wine making for a few years now - couldn't be easier,more fulfilling,or CHEAPER! Check out http://www.winepress.us for some great help in starting up!
porker at 10:23PM on 07/01/08