Wine Making

My dad made wine back in the UP of Michigan when I was growing up. He tried just about everything and as I remember it was all pretty nasty stuff. His favorite, I think was Choke Cherry wine. As kids we used to try and eat these little red berries from bushes that grew almost every where. The result was probably the reason for the name. Many Sat. afternoons I spent with him picking berries. Had red stains on my hands that had to wear off, no soap would even make a dent in the color. He used to "cook" the stuff in the basement of our house in Quinnesec, Mi. Used 25 gallon crocks and covered them with burlap bags in the fermenting stage. Smelled pretty ripe. He used to save gallon jugs and that is how he would do the secondary fermentation. Made his own airlocks with plastic tubes tied in a "U" shape with one end in the cork in the jug and the other pointing up. He added a little water to the tube and it acted like a floor drain allowing the gas to escape without letting air back into the jugs. The process took quite some time. He used to go down in the basement after supper to "sample" the wine to see how it was doing. This usually took an hour or so.. always came back up smiling and as the season progressed think his nose got a little redder. Anyway by the time the wine was finished it always stayed in the gallon jugs and the corks were replace with the original screw caps. Not many full jugs left as the sampling process took its toll on the finished product. I can remember my uncle coming over on a Sat night with his wife to play cards with my parents and ny dad would take out a "jug" and pour a glass and say "wadaya think Marv" my uncle would swirl the wine in his mouth for at least a minute and invariably reply "Good Stuff". He always had a bottle of "Dago Red" that he got from his wife's dad and the procedure was reversed with my dad going on about how good it was. It comes back to your taste, if that is all you know you can pick out the good (bad) from the not so good (really bad).
I started with buying about $200.00 worth of carbouys, primary fermenter, hydrometer,airlocks and misc items. Also started with a kit which is a no brainer. You start with concentrated juice, add yeast, check for specific gravity until you get the proper number then rack (change carbouys) Monitor for the right number, clairify and bottle. Whole process takes about 2.5 months and you have pretty good wine. It used to cost me about $2.50/bottle finished product and the wine is comprable to a $12-$15 bottle of wine at the store. You can do a little messing around with the process like adding oak chips, or vanilla, fresh fruit during the ferment stage to put a personal touch to the wine. Your own labels also add to the uniqueness. For my stepdaughters wedding we had wine and cheese baskets for all the out of town guests in their rooms at the hotel with a label that I made honoring the special day.... anyway try it, great hobby and if you like wine as much as we do.. its a hellava lot cheeper.. we do at least a bottle/day between us and at $9.00 ea = $270/mo vs $3.00/day (homemade) = $90/mo cheers