Shopping Spree

In anticipation of my pending first harvest, I decided it was finally time to bite the bullet and acquire the final and most expensive piece of winemaking equipment that I didn’t yet own:  the crusher/destemmer.  I bought the cheapest one available, a hand-cranked model for $600, but compared to the rental rate of $20 per usage I’ve been paying, I’ve basically just committed myself to maintaining this hobby for at least the next ten years in order to justify the three times a year I expect to use the machine.  Either that, or the wine I’m making will amortize out to a cost per bottle to rival some of the greatest wines in the world.

And since I was headed to the winemaking store anyway, it seemed only appropriate to prepare a thorough list of equipment and supplies that will come in handy as the busiest time of the winemaker’s year approaches.  So, in addition to the crusher/destemmer, which itself takes up every remaining available square inch of my winemaking laboratory (aka the garage), I also came home with a much needed one-man floor corker and a giant, 44-gallon fermentation tub which literally doesn’t fit through my front door.  Needless to say, I won’t be giving myself a Christmas present this year.

44-gal fermentation tub next to
a 6-gal bucket for scale

Meanwhile, the date of my first harvest fast approaches.  Last weekend’s brix reading was 19.2, slightly less than predicted, so I’m now expecting to pick sometime in the next 10 days.  If I was a professional winemaker, I would be miserable right now about how a week straight of torrential downpour will have diluted the overall quality of my wine, but at this point I’m so excited about my new toys that I’m not going to let a little rain (or twenty inches of it, actually) bring me down.