Recently the Pastor of my church and I have embarked upon a new adventure... one that involved deliberate and intensive research in to the spirit... spirit of alcohol that is. Yes, we have begun to brew/vint/ferment wine! It was something that I was interested back in my college days when I was involved in the Society for Creative Anachronism and was involved in the brewing of beer, wine and mead. It was not for the purpose of having a cheap source of alcohol, as I do not drink much, but rather for the love of learning and experimenting with something could be made and then shared. I mentioned this to him in passing and it just so happened that we were both interested in doing this so we have invested a bit in the equipment and supplies and currently have a Merlot and Liebfraumilch in the primary and secondary fermenters. We are very close to delivering our first "children" and finding them good homes. (Bottling and sharing them) It will be at least a month before they are truly ready to drink, but we will have to do a taste test to see if we have succeeded in our efforts. I will let you know how things are progressing. The working name for our winery is "Red Shirt Winery. Home of the Live Long and Prosper Wines." (Yeah, both he and I are Star Trek fans...)
I have always liked wine and am endeavoring to increase my knowledge of not just wine making but understanding the different wines and what is a good or a not so good wine. I can highly recommend the book by Kevin Zraly, Windows on the World: Complete Wine Course, 2008 edition. It is fun book to read, packed with information, and probably the best handbook on learning how to read wine, pick wine and taste or enjoy wine. If you like wine, then get this book.
Remember this one thing though about wine. A good wine is any wine that you like or fits your needs. What might be trash to someone else, might be just what you are looking for.
Prost!
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