Well, the raspberry wine won’t be ready for the second racking for another week, and I just racked the apple wine yesterday, so while there’s a bit of a lull, I thought I ask if any of you are making wine, or have made wine, or are thinking about making wine. So what have you got fermenting? What would you like to try? I’ll be around for the rest of the weekend, so let’s talk wine and winemaking.

The apples on my Ida Red tree have finally gotten ripe, so while the red raspberry wine is working in the primary fermenter (see here for the beginning of the raspberry wine), it was time to pick my apples and press them out.

Ready to start squeezing  Read more 

You want some good exercise? Try harvesting wild grapes while standing in a canoe! To keep your balance you’ll use muscles you didn’t know you had.

I’ve been busy and was out of town last weekend so I haven’t gotten the next batch of wine started yet, but in the meantime there’s a bumper crop of wild grapes along my river, so I’m collecting with the plan of taking another shot at wild grape wine. I haven’t make wild grape since very early in my winemaking adventures and I have to admit my first attempt wasn’t all that good, but my techniques have improved immensely since then. And the grapes are free, all you have to do is collect and clean them. Which leads me to today’s topic: Procuring Fruit for Making Wine.

The SS Sour Grapes  Read more 

I’ve occasionally been asked why I make my own wine when there’s an abundance of reasonably priced, decent quality wine so readily available. I admit, I frequently dip into that well (I’m sipping a hearty California Zinfandel right now). But making your own wine gives you possibilities and a perspective that you’ll never get from merely making a purchase.  Read more 

…overdoing. Meet the Tomato Fanatics of LA.

Consider this an open gardening/homegrown/raised-bed (No, CD, not that kind!) hybrid, modified, variant, panspeciesist, pureblood, mudblood, heirloom, hydroponic and related matters thread. With bees if desired.