how did you start winemaking?

[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

1991 Onwards

I joined a local winemaking club in 1991 that had some really good fruit winemakers. They made some beautiful wines from skinned and pitted yellow plums, blueberries, blackberries. Around 1996 I got the best winemaking book I've ever read "Knowing and Making Wine" be Emile Peynaud and learned how to properly ferment and clear white wines so they wouldn't be petillant in the bottle. I bought high end grapes in boxes e.g. Martinelli Pinot Noir and some very good Petite Syrah. In 2009 I started getting high quality fresh grapes from Washington including Grenache, Mourvedre, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Malbec. I stopped using EC 1118 on red table wines and switched to Pasteur Red or RC212 which gave me better malolactic fermentations. I made fig-raisin-plum sherry from my own pitted Italian prune plums which I baked in my attic over the summer. These we really tasty and used EC 1118 plus nutrient and medium toast American oak cubes. I've tasted 12 year old versions of these which were still in really good condition. The best white wine grapes I ever got were Sangiacomo Carnernos Chardonnay as juice (absolutely stunning juice and wine and probably my all time favourite white. I blended my own reds with the California red to improve their acidity. We made some delicious Grenache with a bit of Mourvdre and Syrah plus a spectacular Washington Malbec. All of our reds are hand-destemmed and uncrushed with no second runs. We make second runs from first run white juice sediment plus press skins soaked in pectic enzyme with a bit of sulphite with no extra sugar or water either alone or blended with homegrown russet/king and cox apple windfalls ground and pressed with sugar or unpasteurized honey e.g. cranberry, raspberry, blueberry. I like pyments, cysers and melomels and make them all. I have a walk-in foam insulated walk-in cooler that can hold about 340 bottles plus 30 carboys of wine. This year I'll make raspberry Chambord table wine, Tripleberry Chambord Port (raspberries, blackberries and elderberries), Siegerrebe, Reichensteiner, Ortega, Madeleine Angevine white grape wine, Marechal Foch and Regent red wine plus, blackberry, wild cherry red table wine, apple wine or cyser. I make about 300 bottles a year. I have about 130 wine grape vines planted with single guyot training 7 feet between rows and 4 ft between plants except Foch at 6 ft between plants. I allow 12-14 shoots per plant (some are 35 years old) and a mximum of 2 clusters per shoot in warm early blossoming and 1 cluster per shoot except Siegerrebe in a normal blossoming year. Foch is finishing flowering now, Regent is in full bloom and Ortega has just started. I spray vines with sulphur and potassium bicarbonate to control powdery mildew and use wasp pheromones to capture yellow jackets plus jam jars to catch all types of wasps e.g. black and white ones. I net to keep out birds and stop spraying at veraison. I make all of my fruit wines from frozen fruit or ground and pressed apples. I have even used Anjou pears which can make beautiful table wines. I don't use herbicides, mulch with grass clipping under my vineyard rows and rototill (early season) and hoe (late season) to kill weeds. I spray a bacteria (bacillus thurgiensis) into my apple trees and cherries to kill moth larva e.g. white maggots in cherries and apple maggots. I use a biodegradable fatty acid soap/pyrethrin spray to control leave hoppers that chew grape vine buds when they are at the "***** willow" stage. I spray my fruit trees, raspberries and grape vines in later winter/very early spring with lime sulphur and dormant oil to kill mildew/botritis spores and insect eggs.

 

[Snafflebit]

These are wonderful stories!

I always enjoyed wine after graduating college and becoming an adult, but was not very sophistocated about what I drank and wine was never a part of my life growing up. Of course, by living in Silicon Valley, one will be exposed to wealthy wine experts. My parents were mostly tea-totalers. They said it was okay to have one beer if it was very hot outside. That was the extent of my family background in alcohol. I learned everything elsefrom high school!

In 2013 I went to a tasting room in Livermore, Calif. with some friends who had become volunteer pourers there. I started helping by sweeping the floors and that day the winemaker came up to me and we started talking. I could tell that this is a job I could love. I was becoming burned out by the pace of my microchip design career and anything else sounded good, and the winemaker was an electronics hobbyist, hand-making controllers for his pumping equipment and bin tipper. So, I fell in love with winemaking, so to speak. That year I helped at the winery sorting the harvest and cleaning equipment. I was paid in grapes for my services and made my first Cabernet Sauvignon, which due to beginner's luck (and high quality grapes) I consider to be one of my best vintages. The winemaker was extremely generous with his time and patience, showing me what good vine management looks like.

I helped with the next three harvests and made wines of varying quality. My first Zin became real hooch, prison wine. Grapes were pruny, overripe and were basically free for the taking. Using those grapes to make wine taught me a lesson about grape quality.

I took a break from making wine, because I lived in a condo and had to do all this messy work in a spare bathroom.
By the way, never tell someone drinking your wine that you made it in your bathroom.

Now I am making wine from grapes that I manage. The wines are still hit or miss, in my opinion, but I am on the right track to start making some fine wines.



Edit: The new property we moved to this year, as it turns out, has some plum trees, a cherry tree and peach or apricot tree (not sure what all there is yet by looking at the green fruit, but they need a good pruning) And five lemon trees.... So, I see some fruit wines in my future if I can find the time.

 

[AR324]

I forgot why wine interested me but in the early 1990s I bought a few books. I loved reading about not just the wines but also the regions that produced them.

My grandfather and his friends used to make wine and I helped out a few times. They since passed away and unfortunately his equipment was not taken care of. By the time I first thought about making wine all of his equipment had been thrown out or sold.

During the pandemic I thought, screw it, and bought a cheap kit to test the waters. Since then I’ve done about 15 kits, tried fresh grapes and juice buckets. I’ve bought about ten books and love making it and researching methods.

I think the best part is, once you have the basics down, the chance to be creative and craft your own wines is fun and relaxing.

 

[jgmann67]

I had been interested in winemaking since living on the Monterey Bay in California in the mid 1980's as a 20-something kid. Fell in love with the idea back then... but moved away, divorced, remarried, kids, college, law school, job.... you know, life... got in the way. Flash forward to 2000, and I learned quite a bit about the state's wine and liquor distribution system. Enough for it to really start to bother me going into the state stores to buy my wine. Another 15 years later and my curiosity finally got the better of me.

I started reading about the process in magazines and online. Found this forum and asked a bunch of questions to fill in the blanks for me. Then I made the decision to start with kits and work my way into wine from grapes. The first task was to convince my wife that it was worth doing (and by that I mean worth spending household money doing). So, I made a chard, a Cab and a Merlot to start. She was very skeptical... but, after some time I brought up a bottle. I got a "wow, really? You made this??" The rest is history.

I've made more kits than I can count; and wine from fresh grapes and juice. Still settling into what I like to do best. But, I probably make around 50 gallons of wine a year.

 

[winemaker81]

I've been engrossed reading everyone's origin stories, and didn't look at the numbers on the poll until now. At this time, just over half the respondents jump in, head first.

 

[Mcjeff]

Loving reading the stories. Mine is a little different so here goes.
We had a hobby farm - mainly with horses. As the kids got older and were no longer on 4H we were reducing the horses and didn’t need as much pasture. So with my wife and some we started brainstorming other ideas as we didn’t want to keep mowing it. Cows? wife vetoed as she didn’t want to send them to slaughter. Sweet corn? Didn’t feel we had enough to make it worth it. Same for hay. My son says how about grapes and make wine? We already had some Concord grapes. So I said sounds like fun.
So I started researching what to plant. NE Ohio so hybrids were the best option Planted a 6 vines each of Marquette, Cayuga White, Chambourcin and Noiret as a test. I figured I had 3-4 years to figure out how to make wine. So I went to library, bought some books and then to my local shops, Label Peelers and Grape and Granary. Bought a kit from Matt at Label Peelers (WE Cabernet / Merlot kit). Took a class a Grape and Granary. I wasn’t expecting much as I had some friends and neighbors that had made wine and it wasn’t good. 1st kit turned out pretty good so I kept going and bought EQ for making from grapes. Found this site and became hooked to try to continually improve and try different grapes and fruits.
Then we decided to move. I left my grapes behind before I was able to make wine from them! But the winemaking goes on with kits, juice buckets, other fruits and purchased grapes.

 

[Raptor99]

I love reading these stories. My first experience with making wine was some accidental wine I made at a kid. I was in the Boy Scouts, and during the summer we went on a week long camping trip. We found a mulberry tree near our campsite, so we picked all the berries we could reach and put them in a big pot. Each day we would eat some of our berry stash. By the end of the week the berries had developed an interesting flavor, and we realized that they had started to ferment.

Fast forward to high school. My family had moved to Montana, and we had a large raspberry patch. My dad started to make small batches of wine from raspberries, elderberries, huckleberries, strawberries, and even beets. I wasn't really involved in the process, but I saw the 1-gallon carboys on the table with airlocks.

Later on, after my dad passed away, my mom gave me his winemaking book:


You can tell how old this book is by the 95 cent price printed on the cover. Inside the book are some handwritten notes, some in my dad's handwriting and some in my mom's. There are also a few slips of paper with records of their wine batches. The recipes in the book are not too much different from modern recipes.

As a country wine maker, I love the fact that wine made from grapes only gets one chapter in the book. There is a whole chapter on root wines, including wines made with beets and parsnips. There is a Jungle Juice wine recipe including potatoes, oranges, raisins, and wheat. The author claims that this is the most popular recipe in the book, and that when it was mentioned in a newspaper column there were 30,000 requests for the recipe. That's a lot of requests for the 1960's when the book was published.

My own winemaking experience, as I mentioned in an earlier comment, started when my wife convinced my two sons to get me a winemaking kit for Christmas 2018. The rest is history!

 

[winemaker81]

Later on, after my dad passed away, my mom gave me his winemaking book:

That's got to be one of the first printings. Bravery was the most popular author regarding home winemaking in the 50's and 60's. I read that "Bravery" clubs were formed in the UK and USA.

Your copy is part of history.

 

[Raptor99]

@winemaker81 My copy is the Fifth Printing, dated June 1968. The original copyright was in 1961.

 

[ratflinger]

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.

@winemaker81 - Bryan, not necessarily true. A lot of the web is archived. Keller's site is still available there.

https://web.archive.org/

 

[winemaker81]

@winemaker81 My copy is the Fifth Printing, dated June 1968. The original copyright was in 1961.

My paperback is a Revised Edition, 11th printing, 1983, by Arco Publishing. I purchased it in January '84, so that makes sense.

I also have a hardback copy, larger than the paperback by over an inch in both directions. There is no print information, other than the 1961 copyright and Gramercy Publishing Company, so I'm wondering if this is the first printing.

My paperback is really beat, but the hardback is in great shape. The funny thing? I have NO idea where I got the hardback. I purchased the paperback at The Winery in Rome NY, but have zero memory of the hardback. I may have picked it up at a yard sale, or possibly it was at The Winery and I got it when we terminated the business. I've also got Gennery-Taylor's Easy To Make Wine in hardback, and I have no idea where I got that, either.

I should start a thread for obscure winemaking books ....

 

[Clover]

I'm a wine snob who won't even politely finish a sample at a tasting if I don't like it. Let's face it - life is short, drink the good stuff. However...

Two years ago I saw a recipe on Farmer's Almanac for dandelion wine. A winery I'd visited the previous year made dandelion wine and sold it for $40 a bottle. I looked outside and saw a field of dandelions - tall ones, easy to pick - so, why not? Sounded like fun, so I went for it. Followed the recipe and it was a bust, one main reason being that they weren't dandelions, but cat's ears flowers - dandelion look-alikes flower wise, but the stems are different. As a person who loves a challenge, I thought, I can do this... what else is free on my property that will make wine? Wild blackberries! I went to work picking pounds of them, fighting biting flies, mosquitoes, squirrels, a random mildly aggressive deer, poison ivy - getting books from the library and scoured the 'net for recipes, tips, how-tos. My first real batch, wild blackberry, was actually outstanding. And that isn't bias, it's a wine snob talking.

Since then I've made over 30 batches. Not all are outstanding, but most are pretty darn good. I'm hooked! My husband is begging me to clear out the freezer (Ok, OK! I yell back, removing the figs but stuffing some newly purchased strawberries under stuff to keep them safe from his eyes). I've made friends at our local wineries and get more bottles than I can count, bless those people. I still have tons to learn - need to master acids better- but overall I'm better with every batch, having a blast, and surprising myself regularly.

The best compliment - when my husband, who prefers beer and freezers with space to store his pint of ice cream - asks for a sip of my wine and then asks if there's more.

 

[cmason1957]

I was not one of the lucky ones to have parents who made wine. I did find out long after I started making wine that my great grandmother (who raised my father) had often made wine from rhubarb and chokecherries in the basement in crocs back when my dad was younger, but stopped after a batch blew up and spread a mess all over the basement (this would have been in the 1930's, so no chemicals used). My father was a math teacher at Univ of Mo- Rolla in the 60's and one year he and a fellow math teacher decided to try to make concord wine, this was probably around 1965. Rolla is about 15 miles from St. James, MO where there are stands along the road offering Concord grapes, a large percentage of Grape Jelly used to be made with these grapes, but Welches switched to grapes from elsewhere at some point. To this day there are about four or five wineries near St. James, MO.

I met my wife about 15 years ago and one of our favorite things to do is go to wineries to hang out and visit with folks. She decided to purchase me two books on wine making. Home Winemaking for Dummies and I forget which other one, which I read from cover to cover. Later that year we stumbled into a shop in Downtown Columbia, MO that happened to sell kits, equipment, beer supplies, etc. We took that as a sign and winemaking commenced. First one was a Pomegranate Zinfandel Island Mist kit, at least that's what I recall the name to be. I remember how long it took us to drink those 30 bottles and take the labels off, never thought we would get that accomplished. We didn't increase the alcohol, but it was something we made, we were a little bit hooked. Decided we only needed to make one or two kits a year, what fun.

We ended that year with about 10 carboys, making about 20 batches, trying everything, fruit, candy canes, skeeter pee, (foolishly) Norton Grapes. We at one point had gotten up to having about 15 batches going at a time, always below the limit, but did push near it for a year or two. Next we joined the local home winemaking club, became President when the one we had retired to go commercial. Now adays we have slowed quite a bit, only make about 20 gallons or so. Love to make and drink Chambourcin from grapes grow just South of Hermann, MO (in Swiss, MO), make a few Finer Vine Kits.

 

[winemanden]

I love reading these stories. My first experience with making wine was some accidental wine I made at a kid. I was in the Boy Scouts, and during the summer we went on a week long camping trip. We found a mulberry tree near our campsite, so we picked all the berries we could reach and put them in a big pot. Each day we would eat some of our berry stash. By the end of the week the berries had developed an interesting flavor, and we realized that they had started to ferment.

Fast forward to high school. My family had moved to Montana, and we had a large raspberry patch. My dad started to make small batches of wine from raspberries, elderberries, huckleberries, strawberries, and even beets. I wasn't really involved in the process, but I saw the 1-gallon carboys on the table with airlocks.

Later on, after my dad passed away, my mom gave me his winemaking book:
View attachment 102231

You can tell how old this book is by the 95 cent price printed on the cover. Inside the book are some handwritten notes, some in my dad's handwriting and some in my mom's. There are also a few slips of paper with records of their wine batches. The recipes in the book are not too much different from modern recipes.

As a country wine maker, I love the fact that wine made from grapes only gets one chapter in the book. There is a whole chapter on root wines, including wines made with beets and parsnips. There is a Jungle Juice wine recipe including potatoes, oranges, raisins, and wheat. The author claims that this is the most popular recipe in the book, and that when it was mentioned in a newspaper column there were 30,000 requests for the recipe. That's a lot of requests for the 1960's when the book was published.

My own winemaking experience, as I mentioned in an earlier comment, started when my wife convinced my two sons to get me a winemaking kit for Christmas 2018. The rest is history!

H.E.Bravery was a regular contributor to The Amateur Winemaker magazine published by C.J.J Berry ( First steps in Winemaking)

 

[balatonwine]

The question "how did you start winemaking" popped up a few times recently, so I created this poll.

Sadly, your poll options are not complete. There are far, far more reasons than the three you suggested. So always a good idea to include "Other -- explain in comments".

I started wine making because I bought a winery and a vineyard... It was that simple. Or that complex... I am still trying to figure out wine making, over two decades later....

 

[Gilmango]

COVID and a broken wrist got me started.

I've brewed beer since I was 14 but never made wine even though I enjoy wine. I think I figured that I was pretty darn good at finding really tasty wines in the $10-20 price range, and did not think my homemade wines were likely to rival those affordable "QPR" wines (mostly from France, Italy, and Spain). However, my local home brew shop would source local (Northern CA) grapes each Fall, and I did actually buy small amounts to add to my sour beers, which were really well liked. Think 25# of Cab. Franc crushed/destemmed and simply added to a 6.5 g carboy and topped with a sour beer, then left alone for 6 months, then I siphoned the lovely light purple beer off for bottling with sugar to carbonate (never pressed the grapes).

Well that local home brew shop was closed by COVID as not being an essential business. So I started buying beer making supplies from MoreBeer. Then my daughter taught me how to skateboard, which was going really well until I fell and broke my wrist. Brewing for me involves a bunch of lifting of full pots and carboys which I could not do with a broken wrist. But MoreBeer's sister site MoreWine was selling a "Nebbiolo" kit from RJS for just $99 shipped, why not give it a try, it was something I could start even with a broken wrist.

That was about 2.5 years ago and since then I quickly found this site, started making better kits, stopped following many kit instructions (omitting fining agents, doing extended macerations, bulk aging, adding oak and/or tannins to taste, substituting yeast, etc.). I also picked my own grapes the past 2 falls in the east bay, picked plums from a friend's house to make my first country wine, and so on. Happily, I am making beer again, but I will probably keep making wine too, though I was leaning towards mostly focusing on the 'pick your own grapes' each Fall, at least until I bought 3 great kits on great sales in the past 3 months. Oh well, best laid plans.

As others have said, the WMT community is a real welcoming space which has made my 2.5 year winemaking journey more informed and enjoyable, so thank you all!

 

[Vern]

Around 12 years ago I came home from work and found that my wife picked buckets of clover flowers. She informed me that her uncles of Italian heritage made wine and she was making some wine. She comes from a college professor background, I came from a agriculture background. I felt she was not proceeding properly so I started researching and reading books. The wine to me was terrific but she liked it. Soon after we went to a party and was served homemade wine and it was ok. Just ok. Soon after she asked if I would make wine for her. Bought a kit, tools , and supplies. The wine was better. Next bought a better kit and wine was better. Wanted to improve so went to a vineyard and picked 200 lbs. Marquette. Wine wasn't bad. Now I am Hooked and planted a vineyard of 96 vines. Next batches were Blends of Marquette, Petite pearl and verona. Now making around 300 bottles and love this hobby.

 

[Jezroti]

Hello everyone, such a cool post here. I love reading everyone’s paths to winemaking so here is mine.

I was really never much of a wine drinker until my wife(girlfriend) started me drinking sweet white wines. Gradually my palate expanded and I would start to enjoy reds too.
She is half Italian and her grandfather grew up in Italy, and has been making wine, his whole life along with all of their family. We would drink it on holidays and during get together’s. It was at this time when I started to take a liking to the wine that he was making, and in case you didn’t know, he would make natural wine. So after multiple years of enjoying Nonno’s wine. One year he asked me if I wanted to make some. I accepted. And that was in 2015 it was my first crack at winemaking. Nonno was in his 80s and decided to give me all of his wine making equipment is 10+ carboys Demijon wine press, grape crusher, but not a destemmer. All of it it was pretty awesome.He even skipped over his own grandson, my brother-in-law, and gave it all to me. Looking back, I would say that he made the right choice.

Now again, he made wine the old way. The natural way. The only way he knew how. The way his parents and grandparents taught him from Italy. Ultimately this consisted of no analysis of the wine, using the natural yeast on the grape. The only thing that he would really do would be add sugar to bring the alcohol level up. He just had a grape crusher and would crush the grapes with the stems and ferment everything together. This is the way it was always done. But for me the type of person that I am I always want to know the why’s and the how’s of what is going on. and when I would ask him questions about the process and why he would do the things that he’s doing or what’s happening he would tell me “that’s the way that we always do it.” And that was that.

So, after a few years, I started to seek out information on how to make it, and what was happening during the process. One of the first great resources I’ve found was the manuals at morewine.com. So finally in 2018 was the first time and I made wine using some modern techniques. Like checking and adjusting the pH although I checked it with ph sticks (less than ideal) and introducing commercial yeast into the must. And I believe this may have upset Nonno for a short period of time as he wondered why I was doing it differently. but I believe after time he realized that I was really taking the winemaking process serious and essentially carrying on the family tradition, because at this point in time nobody else in the family makes wine anymore. I am the only one to carry it on, which I am very proud of.

Since then I’ve expanding my knowledge greatly and have a pretty good understanding of the whole process, and my wines are really starting to show. Unfortunately, Nono passed away just before wine season in 2019. So there has been a few seasons of making wine without him now. My current wines I feel are really starting to hit the next level. I just received a bronze medal for a red blend in the amateur wine making contest for a 2020 wine. A blend of Cabernet, Sauvignon, Zinfandel, and old wine Zinfandel. But now I am checking, pH checking, nitrogen levels, removing stems, cold soaking monitoring, temperature through ferment and also this last year each of my varietals I split into two batches and fermented with separate yeast and then combined each post pressing back.

It has really become a huge passion in my life. I would absolutely love to share my current wines with Nonno. He would love them!

 

[Vern]

Around 12 years ago I came home from work and found that my wife picked buckets of clover flowers. She informed me that her uncles of Italian heritage made wine and she was making some wine. She comes from a college professor background, I came from a agriculture background. I felt she was not proceeding properly so I started researching and reading books. The wine to me was terrific but she liked it. Soon after we went to a party and was served homemade wine and it was ok. Just ok. Soon after she asked if I would make wine for her. Bought a kit, tools , and supplies. The wine was better. Next bought a better kit and wine was better. Wanted to improve so went to a vineyard and picked 200 lbs. Marquette. Wine wasn't bad. Now I am Hooked and planted a vineyard of 96 vines. Next batches were Blends of Marquette, Petite pearl and verona. Now making around 300 bottles and love this hobby.

I meant the clover wine was terrible, sorry,

 

[ibglowin]

Wonderful story. Thanks for posting and sharing!

Hello everyone, such a cool post here. I love reading everyone’s paths to winemaking so here is mine.

I was really never much of a wine drinker until my wife(girlfriend) started me drinking sweet white wines. Gradually my palate expanded and I would start to enjoy reds too.
She is half Italian and her grandfather grew up in Italy, and has been making wine, his whole life along with all of their family. We would drink it on holidays and during get together’s. It was at this time when I started to take a liking to the wine that he was making, and in case you didn’t know, he would make natural wine. So after multiple years of enjoying Nonno’s wine. One year he asked me if I wanted to make some. I accepted. And that was in 2015 it was my first crack at winemaking. Nonno was in his 80s and decided to give me all of his wine making equipment is 10+ carboys Demijon wine press, grape crusher, but not a destemmer. All of it it was pretty awesome.He even skipped over his own grandson, my brother-in-law, and gave it all to me. Looking back, I would say that he made the right choice.

Now again, he made wine the old way. The natural way. The only way he knew how. The way his parents and grandparents taught him from Italy. Ultimately this consisted of no analysis of the wine, using the natural yeast on the grape. The only thing that he would really do would be add sugar to bring the alcohol level up. He just had a grape crusher and would crush the grapes with the stems and ferment everything together. This is the way it was always done. But for me the type of person that I am I always want to know the why’s and the how’s of what is going on. and when I would ask him questions about the process and why he would do the things that he’s doing or what’s happening he would tell me “that’s the way that we always do it.” And that was that.

So, after a few years, I started to seek out information on how to make it, and what was happening during the process. One of the first great resources I’ve found was the manuals at morewine.com. So finally in 2018 was the first time and I made wine using some modern techniques. Like checking and adjusting the pH although I checked it with ph sticks (less than ideal) and introducing commercial yeast into the must. And I believe this may have upset Nonno for a short period of time as he wondered why I was doing it differently. but I believe after time he realized that I was really taking the winemaking process serious and essentially carrying on the family tradition, because at this point in time nobody else in the family makes wine anymore. I am the only one to carry it on, which I am very proud of.

Since then I’ve expanding my knowledge greatly and have a pretty good understanding of the whole process, and my wines are really starting to show. Unfortunately, Nono passed away just before wine season in 2019. So there has been a few seasons of making wine without him now. My current wines I feel are really starting to hit the next level. I just received a bronze medal for a red blend in the amateur wine making contest for a 2020 wine. A blend of Cabernet, Sauvignon, Zinfandel, and old wine Zinfandel. But now I am checking, pH checking, nitrogen levels, removing stems, cold soaking monitoring, temperature through ferment and also this last year each of my varietals I split into two batches and fermented with separate yeast and then combined each post pressing back.

It has really become a huge passion in my life. I would absolutely love to share my current wines with Nonno. He would love them!