So, I got a wine-making set-up for Christmas.

I've never made wine before. It has an enormous container of grape concentrate (Merlot flavored!), so there will be no visions of Bunny stomping grapes in a tub or anything like that. :(

Anyway, the directions seem pretty clear, if a little involved. But apparently in six short weeks I'll have thirty bottles of the very finest.

Does anyone with wine-making experience have any words of caution, wisdom, etc.? I think I understand the basics, but there are always little tips that can only be learned from experience, so I'm open for any help you may have.

you can send me a bottle. :D

Party at Bunny's!

No experience myself, but it's something I've wanted to try. That or beer-making. A former neighbor used to make crab-apple wine, but I never knew how he did it.

Just keep everything spotlessly clean, and don't introduce any air bubbles when bottling.

Also, the concentrate in kits is not exactly premier cru bordeaux quality. It will be fine for everyday drinking, just don't think you can age it for decades.

Drink it up fairly soon? I can certainly do that, just want to be sure what you're saying!

And all you taste-testers and other Lounge friends are welcome to sample it. I'll let you know when it's done, and I can ship a bottle to those interested! :party:

I know how hard this is - trust me.

But you MUST drink it all up in a year.

Invite me over and I will assist.

This is very important!

Sanitation is of the utmost importance. Keep everything clean and you will get something drinkable. Read up on it and most important, have fun doing it.
Find out if there is a store in your area that sells wine making supplies and hang around on a Saturday, you will probably learn a lot. If you are lucky there may even be a place called a WOP/BOP Winemaking on Premise/ Brew on Premise where you can go in and make the wine with assistance. Do a google on winemaking on premis and see if there is something near you.

Now, don't tell anyone or...aw fuck it, every Italian family knows this one.

This is how to make Dago Red, the standard Genovese table wine.

First, you need an old whiskey barrel. If you come from an Italian family, your family already has a barrel. Find out who had it last year and go get it. You are required to share half of your first run with the person who supplied you the barrel. Don't worry, the person who gets it next year has to do the same for you. If you're starting with a new barrel, buy it in March, pour two gallons of water into it, put it on one side of your garage and slowly roll it across the floor--slowly as in "it shouldn't reach the other side until July." This leaches excessive amounts of whiskey out of the wood. You can recover this water and drink it, it's pretty good. Also keep in mind that your first batch of wine will have notes of Jack Daniel's.

You also need a washboard. If you're not from an Italian family, any old-timey hardware store has these; if you are Italian, look in the barrel for it.

You'll also need a siphon hose, 50 glass gallon jugs and a funnel.

Your ingredients are 25 boxes of Zinfandel grapes, 25 pounds of raisins, 25 of sugar and 25 gallons of water. If you're not Italian, also get some Zinfandel wine.

Get started by rubbing the grapes against the washboard to break the skins. Let them drop into the barrel and put the lid on.

Now here's the deal with the Zinfandel wine: Dago Red is NOT a scientific process; you're working with wild yeasts so it can do damn near anything. (When you make wine the fancy winemaker way, you use sodium bisulfite to kill the wild yeasts and infuse the must with a known strain after the sulfite neutralizes.) You test the wine to see if it's ready to be bottled by drinking it. If your Italian family makes Dago Red, you already know what it tastes like; in fact, you probably got a small bottle of the last batch to go through the barrel when you picked the barrel up. If you're starting from scratch, you don't have this institutional memory, so you drink the Zin to figure out what the Dago Red is supposed to taste like.

Anyway, about five days after the lid went on, you start testing it. When the wine tastes good, siphon the wine off the grape hulls, filter it through coffee filters, and bottle it in gallon jugs; make sure the caps are on loosely. This is your first run--half of this goes to the last person who had the barrel. Be very careful here: if you wait too long this shit turns into vinegar, like it did on my grandfather about 20 times.

Now chop the 25 pounds of raisins--a food processor works great. Add them along with the sugar and water to the barrel, install the lid, wait five days and start sampling. When it's right, put it into gallon jugs.

Next, put the gallon jugs in your basement for three or four months. After that, bottle it in fifths. Lay it down for five months and you've got something special.

You get half the first run. Your benefactor gets the other half. The second run is for Christmas presents.

Maybe I'll make that after I use up the fancy schmancy Merlot concentrate!

Your barrel won't hold an entire run. Remember, the Dago Red recipe makes somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 gallons of wine.

Try halving the recipe and see where that gets you.

How to get Zinfandel grapes: my family always special-orders them from California through a grocer they've known for approx. 50 years. These days Zinfandel grapes are being grown nationwide, so the availability should be better.

We used to make wine and often we'd get a secondary fermentation from some yeast that was left in the bottles. We kept the wine rack in our bedroom - reasons of space - or that was our story - and a bottle would often blow in the middle of the night, followed by a glug glug glug sound. Well, naturally we had to drink the rest of the bottle otherwise it would spoil!

A common problem.

it is...!

... read a book or two on it. I've made tons of the stuff.