Hit the Books

After my semi-successful attempt with the wine kit, I was ready to try again, but this time interested in kicking it up a notch.  What else to do then but to call the 1-800 number on the kit to see if they would sell me some grapes this time.  After being put through to someone called the “winemaker,” the conversation went something like this:

“Yeah, I’m interested in making some wine from grapes this time.  Is there anything else I would need other than some grapes.”

“Actually, it’s a bit more involved then that, you might try reading a book first.”

So that’s what I did.  Several in fact.  Here’s a list of the winemaking library I’ve accumulated over the last couple years, most of which I’ve read several times:

Home Winemaking Step by Step – A Guide to Fermenting Wine Grapes by Jon Iverson – A pretty technical review of the entire process, with a focus on the chemistry.

The Backyard Vintner – An Enthusiast’s Guide to Growing Grapes and Making Wine at Home by Jim Law – Sort of like an illustrated intro, but not a lot of detail (technically this book belongs to Drew and Lily, because Kim and I gave it to them as a gift, but I pretty much borrowed it back the next day.  Whoops.)

From Vines to Wines – The Complete Guide to Growing Grapes and Making Your Own Wine by Jeff Cox – In between the first two in the level of detail, and probably my favorite resource at this point.

The Way to Make Wine – How to Craft Superb Table Wines at Home by Sheridan Warrick – Forgot I even had this book until just now.  Guess I need to reread it.

Wine Grape Production Guide for Eastern North America by Tony Wolf – A very technical textbook about growing grapes in this region.

Oregon Viticulture by Edward Hellman – Same as above but specific to Oregon, where we some day would like to have our winery.

This doesn’t include the dozen or so books I have about wine drinking, wine regions, etc.

So, allow me distill for you what my reading over the last several years has taught me about winemaking:  it is a real pain in the ass.

The Wine Kit Experiment

While my love of wine, and specifically Pinot Noir, dates back to my first trip to Burgundy in the Summer of 1998, my interest in winemaking didn’t go beyond enjoying the occasional winery tour until Christmas 2007.  That’s when Kim (wife, assistant winemaker and designer extraordinaire) suggested that my parents give me a home winemaking kit as a gift.  Now that I owned it, I couldn’t very well put in the closet and never look at it again, as my progress was bound to come up at our regular family gatherings, so I decided to go ahead and check it out. 

The kit included a 6-gallon plastic bucket, a 5-gallon plastic carboy and 2 large cans of Pinot Noir concentrate, which is basically the juice from 100 pounds of grape with the water sucked out.  The instructions went something like this:  add water, add yeast, wait a long time, bottle.  Seemed simple enough, so that is exactly what I did.  Adding the water is to replace the water that they sucked out.  When you add the yeast, it ferments in the bucket and turns the sugar in the juice into alcohol. 

Fermentation – The act of taking humans’ second favorite ingredient, and turning it into their first. 

Kim was the one who insisted that I store the carboy full of fermenting wine inside a metal bucket, just in case it leaks.  I was sure that this was a ridiculous requirement, right up until the time I heard a “drip, drip” coming from my office and saw a gallon of wine standing in the bottom of the metal bucket.  Since Kim’s idea had saved the floor in my office, not to mention the ceiling and furniture in the family room below, you can imagine how frequently that fact comes up when we’re having a friendly debate over any given topic, related or otherwise.

A couple months later, with a fourth of my wine lost to the gods of the leaky valve, we bottled the wine in the basement in 18 recycled Burgundy bottles and carefully attached a label I designed on a website for just such a purpose.  Oh, and by the way, the wine tasted like crap.  Ok, not crap exactly, just not like Pinot Noir.  It’s sweet, which suggests that the fermentation got stuck, and is actually much better as an after dinner drink then anything else.  I made it myself though, so you can bet I’ll be drinking every bottle.

Speaking of drinking, last night we busted out our last bottle from the case of Roche 2006 Carneros Pinot Noir we bought during our trip to Sonoma in March 2007.  We actually bought it as “futures” when it was still in the barrel, and received it a year later.  Good stuff.

A Call to Blog

You know those moments when you’re supposed to be acting like a contributing member of society, but are instead daydreaming about ways to change your life?  Mine usually include the typical impracticalities – something about moving to some exotic location to start my world class boutique winery.  Well I was having one of those moments the other day when I was struck with an altogether different idea.  Maybe I should write a blog.  That was quickly followed by an elaborate plan to document a year in my life during which I would drink, in its entirety, a unique bottle of wine every day, for 365 days in a row, and blog about the experience.  Awesome idea, right?  I quickly got to casting the movie version of the book version of the blog when a few realities set in.  First, would being drunk/hungover for a year straight effect my ability to craft witty yet poignant prose on a day to day basis?  And second, might those conditions pose other problems less relevant to the success of my blog? 

So that led me to this, my Plan B.  I could write about my quest to become the owner of a world class boutique winery, a multi decade process which would ultimately conclude at the release party of my first estate grown reserve Pinot Noir.  To achieve this goal I must complete two simultaneous tasks.  First, earn, win or steal an independent fortune, thereby allowing me to finance a world class boutique winery, and second, learn how to make world class boutique wine.  On the first issue, I can’t think of a better idea than to go to work every day (which would be very boring to blog about), but I’m open to any suggestions (or contributions) from my generous readers.  That should allow me ample time to address the second issue, i.e. to provide myself a self-education in the art of viticulture and winemaking.  Everything I make. Everything I grow.  Everything I learn.  Well, that will be my dry run.