After reading the "What wine do you normally buy?" thread, I got to wondering if any of you have made your own wine.

About five years ago, we purchased six grapevines at a wine festival in Paso Robles. They have been growing on the side fence ever since, and this year the one varietal (Cabernet) has tons of grapes.

I thought I would get one of those winemaking kits that has all of the equipment you need for a small batch of wine and try it out. Has anyone done this? Any tips?

Sorry no idea (I have my own grapes but I've never made wine) but you can have a look at this website for anything regarding: do your own, grow your own etc.
It's a great community and they're really helpful and nice!

In primary school, probably third or fourth grade, we tried to make our own wine from store-bought grapes. We hand pressed them, and bottled the juice. After aging in our classroom. After a few months we had very, very bad vinnegar.

I helped make wine years ago when I lived in Hershey,Pa.in the basement of our home. We bought bushels and bushels of grapes in the fall, don't remember what they were as I was my husband's assistant. we crushed,I think distilled and then transferred the wine liquid to big wooden drums and then we bottled quite a bit of both red and white wine.I think the following year we made fruit wines.They were ok. I prefer really good California chardonnays.
Not sure it's worth the trouble but try it once.
Ida

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when I lived in Hershey,Pa.

Ida dear, you lived in HERSHEY? A friend whose father ran the Hershey Motor Lodge for years is visiting next week...she better bring a golden almond bar with her...

hmmmmm. Hershey and wine. ok, word association... Hershey,chocolate..... Wine, Barolo. Barolo and chocolate together???? yum.

I haven't made homemade wine but I have drunk it - ICK. All of the homemade wines I have tried were less palatable then the least expensive wine available in the local liquor shop. Unless you have access to professional equipment and a expert winemaker save yourself the trouble and aggravation.

quote:

I haven't made homemade wine but I have drunk it - ICK. All of the homemade wines I have tried were less palatable then the least expensive wine available in the local liquor shop. Unless you have access to professional equipment and a expert winemaker save yourself the trouble and aggravation.

I am sure you are probably right, but I just wanted to try it one time. I have always said that if I had my life to live over, I would want to be a winemaker (a real one, not a play one)!

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Originally posted by JDeQ:
I haven't made homemade wine but I have drunk it - ICK. All of the homemade wines I have tried were less palatable then the least expensive wine available in the local liquor shop. Unless you have access to professional equipment and a expert winemaker save yourself the trouble and aggravation.

Sorry but I have to disagree with this generality. Many in my extended family make wine. (I do not so I can't offer personal advice.) The wine made was good drinkable table wine (both red and white). It just takes good grapes, knowledge, experience good equipment and patience! It is a labor of love with my relatives.

My daddy used to make wine. I remember trips (as a very little girl) where he would take me with him to train yards and buy cases of grapes right off the trains. We had a cantina in the basement of our house in Brooklyn that always held two large barrels of homemade wine. Hanging from the ceiling were loops of homemade sausage. The wonderful aroma, when you walked into that room, was fantastic. Every once in a while, I get a whiff of something familiar that just transports me to that magical room!

Some of the best meals I remember consisted of cheese, homemade sausage and chunks of crusty bread dunked in homemade wine.

I am lucky to now live next door to a wonderful Italian family who still make their own wine and sausages.

The fragrance that wafts from their garage (where their winemaking operation takes place) in September/October is a lovely, heady aroma of fermenting grapes.

Another thing that it takes to make at least decent wine is quantity. Wine likes to sit and ferment with its friends. it like big vats, at least for the first part of the fermentation process. Later it can be put in smaller ones and bottled, but the first part always comes out better in large amounts.

Or you can take a shortcut and buy it made.
I buy large barrel every year from the local woolgrowers hotel. Nothing fancy simple good homemade brew.

Joanne,

I can't tell where you are located to know if I could do the same.

How and where do you store the barrel of wine?

In italy it is possible to buy not barrells (the barrell costs too much) but "damigiane", humungus bottles witha shape similar to the smaller "fiasco" but holding 20 liters or so. These must be stored in a cool, dark place. The damigiane are bought from the producers themselves: some small producers have truck to distribute the damigiane in neighobring cities (my grandfather bought for years a couple of damigiane or wine this way). In order to make the wine drinkable you have to "move" it from the damigliana to the bottles and store the bottles, also because the distributor will request the damigiane back. Transferring the liquid is easy enough done witha syphon, the hard part is corking the bottles. You need to buy corks and the machine to cork the bottle, or you may decide to buy caps and the other machine to cap the bottles... Either way, you need a bit of equipment.