Classic Wines

Crush at Home

For winemakers, harvest season is a race against time. The bulk of work in creating wine happens during just a few weeks, making it by far the busiest and most stressful time of the year. It is not uncommon for hired hands on vineyards and wineries to work twelve-hour days, six days a week. The grapes must be stemmed, crushed and treated with sulfer dioxide (SO2) before fermentation can begin. Everything is done as fast as possible, because as soon as the fruit leaves the vine it is susceptible to a myriad of biological and chemical enemies. The grapes must be handled with utmost care.

Although I didn't have anywhere near the volume of grapes that a commercial winemaker works with, I had plenty of work cut out for me. I had no equipment, no experience, and just basic materials from Original Home Brew Outlet in Sacramento. Not to mention, I had already finished a full day of class and other commitments. I gathered a couple of my friends and got the project started at about ten on Monday night.

It was already late, so we got right down to business. Since we didn't have a mechanical stemmer or crusher, we did everything by hand (and foot) - like the old days! We sat for hours shucking grapes off the stems on the porch of my apartment listening to music from my computer. Our inability to be very quiet helped us recruit a couple more kids from my apartment complex to help. It literally took all night to finish our medieval style crush. The crushing was done with our meticulously cleaned bare feet in plastic bins. I didn't sleep a wink, I actually ended up missing part of my organic chemistry class at 8 in the morning while adding the yeast, but I think it was worth it. I think I could almost write a book on kitchen chemistry.

Well, now I have a whole closet devoted to this experiment. There are many details I still have to figure out including pressing, transferring the liquid to glass airlocked containers, finishing the fermentation, racking and bottling.

The only question I have, and by far the most important is this - "Can someone drink this stuff?"

That answer slowly bubbles in my closet.

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