Making Wine

Through my connections with Seattle-area wine merchants I met a local winemaker who was getting some of the best reviews in the state. I asked him if he ever needed any help and he signed me up for crush that was happening in about a month.

The first thing that I learned about making wine is that it is backbreaking work. Any images I had of "the romance of wine" were quickly displaced by the reality of the filthy, sweaty, sticky process of turning several tons of fresh grapes into several tanks full of crushed grape pulp. Still, I was loving the learning experience and didn't mind the physical labor, and so I stayed on.

One day I asked the winemaker if he would sell me a few pounds of crushed grapes to try for myself. He said he'd be glad to, as well as to give me advice on how to turn them into wine without screwing up the whole process along the way.