How did you get started in wine making?

[newt]

Would love to read about all the different stories about what peaked your interest in wine making, even if you aren't making it yet and just reading ..

What sparked your interest in wine making?

For those who have made their own wine, how did you first get started?

 

[DirtyDawg10]

Here you go...

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f19/so-how-did-you-get-into-whats-story-30371/

 

[TheGoodLife]

For me, I went to a barrel tasting in Springfield Nebraska and was intrigued at the process. I then started surfing the web wondering if I could do this myself, at a much smaller scale. My first attempt was some Grand Cru Malbec, just hoping it would be as good as "box wine"... and it was better! I was hooked, then I saw everyone talking about Skeeter Pee and thought I have got to try that too. What a great hobby! I couldn't't have done it without this forum.

 

[djsparrow]

I started out making cider because it's tasty and my friend had a bunch of apples. Then my brother-in-law wanted to make some zin. We harvested the grapes and made some pretty decent wine. Now I make about a barrel a year, mostly merlot and a little sauv blanc on the side. I'm looking at buying an acre of pinot with some friends because we love it so much. Not much money to be made, but probably a better bottom line of a hobby than collecting cars. I'm in the Bay Area so it's wine-centric, and I figure I can at least trade a case of wine for art or my mechanic or a furniture maker - I really like the idea of trade and everyone likes wine! It's a really gratifying way to learn about biology, farming, chemistry, and business all in one drinkable product. Good luck with your research.

 

[mroverstreet]

A couple of friends, including my then fiancé, got three couples together to make a wine kit at a shop south of the Twin Cities in Minnesota that kind of held your hand through it. We eventually made three kits there before beginning to make them ourselves at home some five years ago. We've now made over two dozen kits, are part of a 40-year old wine club (just joined the board), and are planning to plant northern hardy vines around our patio here in Mineapolis this spring.

Our attraction is both the challenge and satisfaction of making decent wine, and the social aspect of spending time with other wine makers and wine drinkers.

 

[pnkuljis]

My dad made wine with his dad and grandfather. Even though he did not make wine with us I wanted to keep the tradition going. In my dad's day a good majority of people made wine in our town. Now very few people make wine. There is 5 of us in our group we started out with one barrel and now make 6-7 barrels a year mostly cab. We have inspired at least 10 others to start making wine. A hobby on steroids.

Paul K

 

[HowieMakesWine]

I was always busy with my work, no time for hobbies. A friend of mine told me how he would get out on weekends whenever he could find the time for it to fly his model planes. That made sense to me, doing something totally different from your daily routine. Since I'm a lover of red wines, as well as a lover of tasting different varieties of beer, so I thought of trying out making my own wines and beers. The challenge for me, currently residing in a Muslim country, was and is to get all the equipment and ingredients to make exactly what I want. I like that challenge, and friends of mine like the result!

 

[lancealot]

back in the day my father had made wine and beer with really bad results. however I was at a beer festival and there was a demonstration by a homebrew company with free samples, they tasted good and because we are heavily taxed in the UK was really economic to homebrew and still is. Ive moved on experimenting and trying new things, country wine was the last inovation for me as I have 4 or 5 elderberry trees out the back. Sometimes it works really well and sometimes its not as good but the fun is trying and teaching your tastebuds

 

[Beebock]

For me it's was pretty simple. Raised in the Champagne region of France, when I moved to england I realised that I was missing all of local brews. (The champagne you get in the shops is nothing compared to the 'mate's barrel')

I kept putting things off, and last year I got cancer (all clear now) and that basically kicked me into gear to finally doing it. It's now been a year and I have kept myself (and the other 1/2) in wine (and now beer) as well as close friends and family.

For example, last christmas had only 1 'bought' bottle (champagne) and the rest was home brew, and we really enjoyed it.

The other side of it is that my other 1/2 has IBS and she is really not good on a lot of the bought wines (yeast + other crap). This way I can kill off the yeast and make it exactly to our liking. And as she says, it keeps me out of trouble!

 

[walter]

Well it all started when I was about 10 my father made the wine, with my help. It’s a tradition now 45 years on, my son hates the stuff so I don’t make as much now. It’s just me and him in the family and a few friends. But what really has me making wine is the ability to make a drink that can stand up to the best store bought wines. No set laws in making wine it’s up to the maker to do a good job, fruit, vegetables and grain all are fair game. The choice of yeast so many variables make it worthwhile. I feel as if something is a miss if I haven’t got something fermenting. sad hey!
I have a vineyard and sold everything to a winery they picked and pruned for me until this year a glut year so I didn’t do much maintenance (I work 2weeks away 1 home) then we had a fire come through lost about 95% of vines, posts, drip system and fence .That is why my son told me to get in here and maybe find out if the vines can be salvaged.

 

[ForData]

Like Lancealot, I'm in the UK and the taxation on practically everything makes it too expensive to keep buying wine. However there have been a number of factors that drove me to this:

1. A friend introduced me to it and showed me the ropes.
2. We try to follow a sustainable, eco friendly lifestyle.
3. We live in the middle of the countryside - plenty of hedgerows / fields / farmers that we can gather our ingredients from (as long as we let them have a bottle or two).
4. We like to know what goes into what we eat / drink.
5. As a hobby it doesn't take all my time - but it allows me to get out of the living room and away from the TV when the family are watching the X Factor or some other such tripe!

The only problem I have with it, is how accessible the wine has become. I would say that since taking up wine making, my alcohol intake has doubled. I think that this is a very important point - as alcohol is so addictive - my only struggle with home made wine is keeping it in the bottle, and not in me!

Hope that helps!

 

[garymc]

I started growing grapes, muscadines, for table use. It just kinda got out of hand and I needed a good way to preserve the grape product. So I decided to go with the preservation technique used for thousands of years, wine. This way I can make use of the medicinal properties of muscadines year round.

 

[ojaibill]

I became interested in winemaking in a roundabout way. My wife and I enjoy tasting good wine primarily in California. We have also tasted in the Willamette Valley, Oregon. My boss's father has made wine since he was 18 and I got to help him this past harvest. My other coworker's is an advanced homebrewer whose brother is a bigtime vintner in Paso Robles. We have been fortunate to barrel taste his upcoming vintages. My daughter attends Cal State Fresno and is a enology major. So I'm around wine people a bit and the mix of science and artistry is so compelling. Recently I won a winemaking kit (Sauv. Blanc) from a silent auction at a local charitable wintasting event. Now, in the next week or so I will begin fermentation of my first wine. My hope later this year is to get my sanitation procedures down and then buy a 1/2 ton of red grapes and make wine with those.

 

[dangerdave]

Two years ago my wife became unable to work. Her back is very bad. We were always beer drinkers. On a whim, I brought home a bottle of wine from the grocery (horrible stuff). I noticed it made her smile when she held a glass of wine. Fearing this might have been a fluke, I got another bottle the next week. Same result. More smiles! Soon, she was drinking sveral bottles a week. At $10 a pop, it was adding up. I thought, "I know I can make this stuff cheaper!" Some research proved that to be true. I joined this very web site, and these wonderful people helped me to learn winemaking. I appreciate them all very much.

Over the past eight months, I have produced more than 120 gallons of wine. As it turns out, everyone in both of our families loves wine! It's a win-win-win-win-win for everyone!

 

[roadpupp]

I am a long time wine drinker. I have taken several wine tasting classes and have toured Napa and Southern France. I can't quite afford all the quality wine I would like to drink!

Until a month ago, I don't think I knew anyone made their own wine. Well, there was Nicol, an old Italian friend of my father's who makes really strong and not so great wine kept in a barrel in his basement. Last month I attended a wine tasting at a friend of a friend's house and it was all home made wine! Much of it was too young and to be frank, these folks seemed more interested in drinking than in drinking good wine. However, I could see the potential. I started researching and found this board and discovered that you could buy wine kits and fresh juice. Somehow the idea of buying and crushing grapes seemed impossible (now it seems like a goal)

I have a high stress job and needed a hobby on those long winter months other than home repair projects. Winemaking is perfect. I am learning about wine from the ground up, have a great new hobby and hopefully will start cutting down my liquor store bills!

 

[rplj66]

My grandfather made wine for as long as I can remember. A few years back my parents bought me a little 1 gallon starter kit and I was off and running. Shortly after, I inherited all my grandfather's equipment and I never looked back.
I've tried everything from Beer to Cidar from Lemon to Viking wine.

Its been a fun and interesting road.

 

[Tomer1]

My grandfather was a winemaker back in his Romanian homeland.
When he made Aliya to Israel he continued to be a home winemaker untill maybe 10 years ago when he got too old to do so.
about 4 years ago my older brother bought some basic starter's gear and had a shot.
A year later (2009) I was given the gear to have a go and its been a major passion ever since.

 

[svatch]

Probably not the best answer.

A friend and I were just young whipper snappers looking to have some excitement in life. His dad had a two level garage, which fortunately he designated a small area for the boys to play cards, throw darts, and just be boys. We were 16 and within walking distance of everyone's homes. Beer was hard to come by at that age and when we did get some, it usually made the gatherings a little more fun. Both of us being fairly bright kids (academically not so much sensibly) we decided to jump into the wine making process. We have always heard stories of how people used to make wine from the old timers. You know, the typical old timer talks; the way people used to survive by fishing, hunting, gardens, canning, beer, wine, whiskey and garlic. I better say garlic again because that may have been the single most important life sustaining food source, so they said! Well, a trip to the neighbors harbored a five gallon bucket of grapes and a walk to the grocery store got us a 5 lb bag of sugar and some bread yeast. When we got back to the garage we mixed everything together and to our surprise; a few hours later our bungee strapped bag looked like a hot air balloon. "We better poke a hole in the damn thing!" I said. We let it go for a few weeks and racked it off into a few 1 gallon glass jars. I can't tell you how good we felt at our success. Now 20 years later I'm still into it, I make between 15 and 40 gallons of wine a year. I have tried a lot of different wines, many of which I have dumped out or turned into vinegar but the same principal still holds true. I love to give a bottle of wine away and have that person tell me how good it was.

 

[StrykerFA]

My grandfather made wine in the basement of his house and I watched once in a while. After he passed on My father and uncles stopped. Then over the years I moved away and tradition was gone. I started when one of my friends made wine and I got interested to try and carry on the tradition. I receved a kit from my mother for Christmas about 7 years ago and have been making wine ever since. I started with kits and then progressed to fruits and juices. I have my daughters do the stomping sometimes just to get them into it. I had a batch made with California grapes this year and tried to recreate the Dago Red my Granfather made. I called my Uncle for the recipe. It came out pretty close. I love making wine and like dinking it as well. I may need to start selling to keep space to make it; otherwise I will need to start drinking more. I have about 30 cases sitting all over the basement and in a winerack I made.

 

[Vambo]

There is a lady I see at our local park when we are walking our dogs. She has been making wine for longer than I have been alive, and it is very nice wine too. I started making wine because she was always giving me bottles and I thought it was about time I returned the favour. I like wild wines and was often out getting ingredients for her wines and thought I might as well make some of my own. I am just as happy out in the countryside gathering the ingredients as I am drinking the end result.