how did you start winemaking?

[FlamingoEmporium]

The Utica-Rome area of NY has a large population of Italian descent, and they generally learned from previous generations

I knew a guy who fermented cherry wine in 50 gallon crocks. i was more impressed by anyone having a 50 gallon crock. Probably originated in a tannery in Gloversville.

 

[ChuckD]

And think about a little starter kit to give to friends who ask how do you make that.

Yes.

My brother was wondering about making wine from his plum trees. I told him I’d supply him with everything he needs to try it out.

This fall I’m having a wine tasting party and I plan on having wine in all stages of fermentation, and all the equipment out, so I can show the many folks who are curious.

 

[vinny]

When Water2Wine was a big thing I went by their place. They gave me a full tour and I noted what they were doing and how. Bought one of their bottles as a 'Thank you', went home, looked it up on the interweb and here we are. Went by a LHBS in Austin where I got supplies and a WE kit. I later found George at FineVineWines and that's when it really took off.

Is that BarleyandHops George?

 

[larsnpmi]

We have an acre of property in coastal north San Diego County with a section at the bottom that is heavy clay soil - good for nothing except grapes. I decided to plant a small vineyard (150 vines), was gifted cuttings of Grenache and Syrah by a top vineyard owner/winemaker from Santa Barbara County, rooted them and planted (with help) in 2019. Then I had to learn how to make wine. Talked to a friend who grows grapes and makes wine on the East Coast, bought lots of books, subscribed to Winemaker Mag, found WMT and am on my way. I made one kit, wasn’t impressed with the “cooked” taste and bought grapes from El Dorado County. Better wine. I’ve also made a few Finer Wines kits. Good stuff.

In 2021, for my B’day in October, after a very small initial harvest, my wife volunteered to help me pick grapes and we picked 500 lb of Petite Sirah, Syrah and Mourvèdre on a one-day trip to Temecula. I turned that into wine that we and many friends really like.

My 2022 harvest would have been great until the figeater beetles ate or spoiled 90% of it. The wine from the remainder is aging in carboy. I’m looking forward to a half-ton harvest this year and am prepared with bee netting to keep the beetles out. However, netting 150 vines won’t be easy.

 

[JustJoe]

I tried making wine a looong time ago, before there was an internet. Like Winemaker81, I had no clue and put some rhubarb, water and sugar in a big jug, added bread yeast and covered the neck of the bottle with a balloon, The balloon inflated the eventually deflated and I tried a taste of it. It was so bad I dumped it, gave the jug away and never tried again until I found some videos on Youtube . Then I made a batch of wine from wild grapes following a recipe I found online and it turned out drinkable. Then I found WMT and I haven't stopped. 30 to 40 gallons a year now.

 

[Sailor323]

Wine had been a big part of my life for 15 or 20 years before I started making wine. I moved from Chicago where I was a bit of a wine snob and I had a pretty decent collection. I moved to a rural location, decided to live a self-sufficient lifestyle and began to produce much of what I consumed. It was natural to try my hand at winemaking. I started with fruit wines and welches grape juice. I soon graduated to concentrates ( that was back in the 80s and concentrates were nothing like kits today). I connected with a grape grower who had 5 acres of French-American hybrids. I bought grapes from him and began making wine in 15 gallon beer kegs, pressing hundreds of pounds of grapes a year, mostly Foch, Seyval and Vidal. At some point, my lifestyle changed and by 2005 I stopped making wine--buying a lot of it instead. Then, about 5 years ago I decided to try my hand at it again. Wow! kit winemaking has really changed from the 80s! I have been more than satisfied with wine that I can make and now I rarely buy wine and drink an average of 1 bottle a day.

 

[rustbucket]

My wine making started in college when I came across a recipe for Balloon Wine in the Whole Earth Catalog. The recipe called for Welches Grape Fruit Juice concentrate, sugar, and bread yeast. I mixed it up, put it in an empty Almandine gallon wine bottle with a balloon over the top. According to the recipe, when the balloon burst, the wine was ready. It was awful stuff bur my dormitory mates drank it up and declared it good.

 

[Ted Brumleve]

My dear wife bought a winemaking hardware kit for my Christmas gift in 2013. She is to blame for my addiction.

 

[vinny]

My dear wife bought a winemaking hardware kit for my Christmas gift in 2013. She is to blame for my addiction.

It really helps to get through the days when you live with an enabler!

 

[mikewatkins727]

My wine making got started in 1968/1969 when I was stationed at Lowry AFB, CO. Came to work one day and my supervisor asked me "Airman Watkins, you ever make wine? I have this here recipe...." It was the same recipe as @rustbucket's.

 

[distancerunner]

My grandfather made wine. I wanted to make wine with him. Unfortunately, he didn't tell me when he was getting the grapes for his last vintage. Maybe he didn't want to or maybe he forgot. He was around eighty at the time. The good news is that I got his press and crusher.

Fast forward almost twenty years. An old college buddy was living a few miles a way. We were talking about wine and winemaking and decided to do it. When we started we didn't know there are books on the subject. All I had was a list with two grape varieties on it it and the number of lugs to buy of each. We bought the grapes, a couple of whiskey barrels, and some yeast. We made wine with my grandfather's gear.

My friend left the state the following summer to pursue a master's degree. I moved forward on my own. By then I discovered the existence of a LHBS, books, classes, etc. Then I discovered rec.crafts.winemaking. Spent a lot of time there. Read a lot of books that I didn't completely understand. Chemistry was a lifetime away. Made wine for another four or five years.

Fast forward to 2017. A friend of mine wanted to make mead. I pulled some of my harvest and we did it. Moved to juice buckets the following year and then back to grapes. Usenet was long gone by then. While searching for archives I ran across WMT.

TL;dr: Started with a buddy who knew less than I did. No guidance. Learned the rest on my own. So I voted "dove in solo."

Seven years later there is a small group of people who buy into our crush. For some reason they think I actually know what I'm doing.

I don't.

 

[winemaker81]

Then I discovered rec.crafts.winemaking.

I have fond memories of RCW.

Usenet still exists. Not sure what's on it -- I checked 5 or 6 years ago, and some of the groups such as rec.crafts.winemaking still existed, but traffic was low. It was very popular, as it was all we had, but by the late 90's it devolved heavily in to porn and music pirating. Some time after 2000 my ISP at the time dropped Usenet as it was resource intensive and was mostly porn and music.

Don Buchan (RCW FAQ keeper) still hosts the FAQ on his site, although at this point, it's dated enough to not really be useful. There is a LOT of recipes, but by our standards, most are fairly poor in quality.

But still fond memories. I didn't learn any where near as much as I do from this forum, but it was a good resource.

 

[Rocky]

I enjoy reading of others' experiences! It is a really source of satisfaction and joy to reflect on the past and the pleasant experiences of youth. It got me to thinking about winemaking at home over the years and some of the things that come back clearly are:

• going to school with "purple hands" and taking the ribbing from classmates.
• buying 53-gallon whiskey barrels from the Schenley Distillery in Schenley, PA. The last ones we bought were in the early 1970's and were $5 each. They probably had that much whiskey still in them.
• buying grapes in Pittsburgh at the Strip District. In the late 1940's, the price for a 42 (may have been 44 pounds) pound lug was $.75 and my Pap could net about 3 gallons per lug. By the early 70's, prices had risen to about $3.75 per lug. The last lugs I bought here in Columbus were around $36 per lug, but they did reduce the weight to 36 pounds to make up for the price increase! No, wait...
• the fruit flies were everywhere for a few weeks. When we complained, Pap would say, "Non preoccuparti, non bevono cosi tanto." (Don't worry, they don't drink that much.)
• segregating the "free run" wine, i.e. the wine that came out of the working barrels without pressing and making it into a wine marked "Per La Familia." (For the Family)
• my grandfather making 2nd wine with sugar, water and the un-pressed skins.
• Early on, "bottling" the wine in 1 gallon jugs, with a layer of olive oil, a cork, melted wax and electrical tape. This was prior the the miracle of...
• Sodium Metabisulfite in the 1960's! We sourced this out of Buffalo, New York and a small test tube of the stuff was $5 but it was a "miracle drug." We probably saved that much in olive oil, wax and tape!
• The introduction to Potassium Metabisulfite, reducing the sodium.

It probably was not all that pleasant at the time, but the memories today make up for that. I am sure many of you have similar recollections.

 

[Shurt1073]

Had a family friend making Island Mist black cherry wine with 5 lb of sugar for about a 13% abv and thought I could make the same wine with less sugar, more flavor and better received by friends & family. I'm wrong a lot of the time, but I was right on this one! My black cherry was about 11% abv with lots of flavor. His guidance gave me the confidence to make my first 6 gallon wine!

Today, I have 40 gallons in carboys for bulk aging .... these are some of the most exciting times of my wine making life. Winemaker81 has been a awesome source along with many many others from this forum. Reading past posts from years ago gives me ideas and the knowledge to make very special wines to be enjoyed for many months (or until they are gone).

My taste are changing from the sweet fruit or fruit flavored wines to a drier red. I love the FWK and WineXpert kits. I'm retired, having fun, and this hobby has been a blast for me. Its cool that no one bust my balls for asking stupid questions and I have plenty!

 

[Hazelemere]

Part 1 - 1961 to 1988

I started tasting wines at the age 12 Winzertanz, Lenz Moser and Paarl Roodeberg all decent.

I started winemaking at the age of 18 from a book I found in Toronto.

I made wine from concentrated grape juice e.g. Hidalgo from Wine Art.

These wines were consistently mediocre or even poor.

A huge mistake that I made was using PVC carboys with air spaces.

This is me as a winemaker in 1967. i.e. a total dummie.

Good news was I got to taste very good Algerian wines in gallons that I bottle for my father plus really good South African Paarl wines such as Chenin Blanc, Riesling, Pinotage, Cinsault and my favourite in the reds Paarl Roodeberg.

I also tasted my father's Mommessin Export (decent French Red).

The best wines that I tasted were the Paarl Chenin Blanc and Paarl Roodeberg.

1975

I drove a 10 speed bicycle with a friend to New Orleans from Toronto in fall 1975 after finishing a Master's degree in Chemical Engineering after a Bachelor's degree in Chemistry in 1971.

My friend developed mono-nucleoisis in Nashville so I spent all my time when he was sleeping in the Nashville library looking at weather maps for Canada because I decided that I wanted to grow wine grapes in Canada after reading Philip Wagner's book Knowing and Making Wine

On a coin toss i.e. Ottawa River Valley vs Cloverdale BC, BC won and 2years later I had a job and owned a 2 acre property south of Cloverdale, BC

I planted 40 vines in 5 rows of 8 vines which I propagated and added to as a voluntary apprentice of John Harper a legend in British Columbia growing and vine propagation - He had a 6 acre vineyard with a gazillion varieties and grafted them on a variety of rootstocks. He was a gift to me and got me access to certified virus free plant cuttings (My vineyard today is 100% certified virus free - this is a big deal and a gift)

Muller Thurgau
Leon Millot
Cascade (Seibel 13053 hybrid)
Siegerrebe
Ortega
Madeleine Angevine
Madeleine Sylvaner


Muller Thurgau was tasty and fragrant but mildew sensitive. Leon Millot was tasty but jungle like (too vigorous with lots of small clusters and really tiny berries, Cascade had a flavour that I didn't like. Otherwise it was ok. Ortega was excellent in flavour but could suffer from botrytis. Madeleine Angevine was always good. Madeleine Sylvaner was tasty but soft berries that could split in a arainy harvest.

I ended up with 200 vines in my vineyard on a slightly south-facing slope at about 1700 Fahrenheit heat units and grew a gazillion varieties until 1988 when I moved to a smaller 1 acre property at the age of 39 with propagated cuttings from my 1st property.

Fast forward to 1988

I now had ~132 vines

Agria
Schoenburger
Madeleine Sylvaner
Reichensteiner
Dornfelder
Zweigeltrebe
Optima
Ortega
Siegerrebe
Wurzer

I ripped out Agria (beet flavour other wise ok red), Optima ( too dense wrt botrytis of powdery mildew otherwise very good flavour), Schoenburger ( good flavour but too late). Madeleine Sylvaner (too soft and attractive to wasps or splitting in rain, otherwise very tasty and prolific, Dornfelder - huge clusters, very healthy but not intense enough for me with low SG. Berries are too large to create intense wines. Zweigeltrebe - big crop, very tasty and healthy but hard to control on crop to get high quality. Wurzer, a Muller Thurgau/Gewurtztraminer cross is delicious when ripe but too packed in its clusters to avoid mildew or botritis.

I made better wines during this period but not consistently. Some of them were really good but it wasn't until 1991 that I started to really understand winemaking. When I have the time and energy to talk about that I will..

Good luck to all of you.


Klaus

 

[ceeaton]

Raspberry wine first made in Nov of 2014. Then I found this forum during my searches, lurked for a few months and joined.

The wine I then made started actually tasting drinkable after that, lol.

 

[vinny]

Its cool that no one bust my balls for asking stupid questions and I have plenty!

We wouldn't want to discourage you! It gives us something to talk about over a glass of wine.

Guess what Scott asked today!

 

[ratflinger]

Is that BarleyandHops George?

No, this George was in Dallas and had a shop there.

 

[winemanden]

I moved into lodgings just outside Banbury in 1953. By 1954, I was considered part of the family and press-ganged into helping the landlady's mother, Mrs Fletcher, make wine. She was a proper old country woman who made wine the way her mum & dad made wine. She showed me the rudiments of fruit & veg winemaking, and after I got married I made my first solo wine. Beetroot wine. Drinkable, not too bad, but also not that good. Luckily, I gave a bottle to my Father in Law, who, not being much of a drinker, had hidden it away at the back of the larder. We opened it well over a year later. Wow, what a difference. First lesson learned! Now I understood why Mrs Fletcher only brought out a bottle when she thought it was ready.
Since then, I learned as much as I could about a hobby that has developed into a pleasing lifelong habit.

When silly people ask me what's the secret of living so long, I just grin and say it's the amount of tannins I've drunk which have preserved me.

 

[winemaker81]

A note on Usenet -- Usenet is a distributed bulletin-board type system, where participating providers receive new messages from other provides, and pass them on to providers that haven't received the new messages yet. There are thousands of groups, which resemble the top level forums of any forum.

It sounds clunky but it worked surprisingly well. Access required a Usenet reader, a program that remembered the groups I liked, downloaded new messages each time I ran it, and uploaded new messages by me. It looks a lot like a forum.

A lot of the messages are still in various internet archives, 30+ years later. That's a big difference with forums -- if the owner of WMT drops the forum, everything we have written is lost. This is among the reason I write posts for my winemaking site.