Making Vino!

As you guys know I made my own wine recently. It was a surprisingly easy process but it took over three years to come about. It started when I stumbled down the back of my old property in Kingsland and discovered that my clothesline had grapes growing all over it. This tells you two things. One: It's not that hard to grow grapes. And two: I don't do the washing very often.

The year before I made jam from the plum tree at the front of the property so I thought I better do something with these grapes before the birds had their evil way with them.

I wanted a challenge and as I'd already made jam so I thought to myself - wine. My chum Waz has made feijoa wine so I thought he was the man to talk to. And I was right.

So was born the Clothes Line Vine

Liberated from a clothes line in Kingsland these grapes were of unknown origin. However they have produced a lively, sweet summer drop that is the colour of pink panties with hints of rocket fuel.

The winemakers themselves are surprised by the drinkability of this fine drop. Enjoy in the shade in Summer and do not operate heavy machinery afterwards.

Crafted by hand and lovingly pressed by foot.

So here for you're viewing pleasure is the making of the wine...

This is at Waz's place but that's some of my jam in the background there. It wasn't part of the process. More's the pity. 

All this sugar went it. It's what makes the wine boozy. 

That's that. Now we had to play the waiting game. So we left the wine to sit in Waz's garage.

Fast forward three years. It was time to bottle up. So I purchased some old bottles on trademe and cleaned them up. Sterilizing the bottles was relatively simple but getting the labels off was the real job. I realized that taking labels off a bottle is a lot like making love to a beautiful woman. Some just come off in your hand while others make your life a misery.

 
Once the bottles were cleaned up. It was time to bottle up.

First you'll need some sterilized corks.

And one of these things.

Waz, me and his boy Benny made a little production line bottling the wine. We were done in no time.

The first sampling.

Then it was time to add the label.

Then simply sit back and enjoy it's sweet goodness. Oh and, true to form, it's incredibly alcoholic. Which is nice.