Strawberry Wine

I’ve been transitioning to a new job at work. It’s a very good move from me and gets me away from the “direct support” role that I’ve been doing for the past two years back into “real” work with an Architecture group. It was a nice vacation but now it’s time to get back to work. The problem is that my old role hasn’t been filled yet and I’ve been pushing like crazy to do both jobs because I don’t want to leave the old team hanging. After six weeks of working two jobs for one salary I’m over that. I have two major tasks to finish off with the old role. Both will complete in the next two weeks and then I’m done with’em. It’s a relief.

That is, of course, a passive way of saying, “I haven’t had time for blogging!”

At work yesterday I was telling one of my coworkers about my wine making exercise of a few weeks ago. In the process I came to understand a frustration that I had with when I made that first batch. You see Vintners are, for the most part, jerks. They write up recipes and techniques in such a way as to imply that these are the ONLY way to do things and anything not to that standard isn’t worth drinking. They go into great detail and turn the whole thing into a big science project. They’ll talk about specific gravity and hydrometer and starting and finishing and fining and… good lord! I just wanted to make my own bottle of wine and it’s all so complicated as to be undoable, I almost gave up before I started. My coworker was in the process of giving up in the same way.

So here’s my nod to Vintners, ya’ll make consistently good wine. Good for ya.

And here’s my nod to back country, back woods, redneck wine makers, ya’ll do too but you need internet access.

I had a bit of a leg up on the process. My Uncle has been making wine for many many years. He makes consistently good wine. Very good. He uses an old water battle, bread yeast and piece of rubber siphon hose. I knew it could be done without all of the fancy equipment because I’ve seen it done. A quick think on the process and you’ll realize that people have been making wine out of fruits for the last 5000 years or so without the aid of these new fangled chemistry sets. Of course, they made a lot of vinegar in the process but if you get over that being the ultimate failure in wine making you can do a pretty good job of it. So, what’s the trick of it? How did those billions of bottles of wine get made over the years without the aid of a hydrometer? I asked my uncle a similar question and his answer was simple. It was, “Well, I reckon that we’ve all had a glass or two of good wine. Of course, we’ve all had a few glasses of not so good stuff too. You just taste what you’re making and adjust it so’s it’s good.” Brilliant. Using this method my first batch of wine came out fantastic. I mean, fantastic to the point of people being genuinely surprised when I hand them a glass of it. The wine is only a month old and it’s damned good if you ask me or anyone else that I’ve had try it. I made it in my kitchen without fancy tools and without the high dollar equipment. It’s good enough that I want to share the method with folks.

Hop over to Jinksto’s Redneck Wine Makin’ guide and see what you think. If you have questions or comments leave them here… I don’t think you can comment on that page.