A Gift

[jbullard1]

I have a neighbor that is in his mid 80's that made wine until the mid 90's. For the past 3 years I have taken my tractor and plowed his garden and tilled around his vines. Well a few days ago he gave me a 5 and a 7 gallon carboy, several gallon size glass jugs and some frozen scuppernong juice. In with all this he had a half gallon of Elderberry wine made in 1994 and a 3 litre jug of muscadine wine. The mood hit me today and I pulled the cork on the Elderberry.
About all I can say is

If the muscadine is anything like this I'm going to enjoy myself
And on a lighter note he told me to clean out his cabinets if I wanted

Neighbors like him are hard to find

 

[Wade E]

I would sure want to clean the attic, basement, and where ever else they might have wine stuff stashed.

 

[TB1]

Good find there. But I am afraid the real treasure may well be in his head. Might I suggest you start spending some more time with him talking and taking notes on recipes, processes, collecting fruit and talking in general. If you do this you may well end up with any notes or recipe books he might have. and the rest of the wine making stuff may well follow. It did for me. I might also suggest not to wast time doing it. Those recipes could get lost forever.

 

[Wine4Me]

[Good find there Wade. But I am afraid the real treasure may well be in his head. Might I suggest you start spending some more time with him talking and taking notes on recipes, processes, collecting fruit and talking in general. If you do this you may well end up with any notes or recipe books he might have. and the rest of the wine making stuff may well follow. It did for me. I might also suggest not to wast time doing it. Those recipes could get lost forever.]

Not only do I agree with TB1 but would love to hear about the recipes you learn from this gentleman..?..

 

[Luc]

Fully agreed with TB1 and the others.

When I started making wine I had no-one around to help
me, so I started by reading books and info from the internet.

Whish I had someone around with knowledge that helped me back then, that would have helped preventing some real errors I made in the past.

Take notes, interview him, help him when he makes
wine or ask him to help you when you make some batches. Listen and learn. Ask if he has notes and ask if you may copy them. You may have found a real treasure.

Luc

 

[Wade E]

Pluck that mind!