Homemade Wine: An Exercise in Quality Rewards vs Instant Gratification
For anyone that has spent time creating things for themselves--such as growing your own food, planting and harvesting your own fruit trees, building your own outdoor stove, baking your own fresh soft loaves of bread, rendering your own vinegar, or processing and decanting your own wine--you know exactly what a fun, educational, and rewarding process it is, especially when it takes place from start to finish of your own volition!
Wine making, for example, is an exercise in patience. (We refer to all of our fruit alcohols as "wine", but technically wine is only wine when it is made from grapes. In traditional wine making, there is no boiling or adding of sugar, but we do not use the technical wine making process.) Homemade "wine" is a somewhat labor intensive process: you pick fruit, clean it, boil it with sugar, and then strain it out & add yeast to start the wine process. It is a lot of work; sometimes it can take many hours to complete these steps. However, it is by far more rewarding than the alternative:
You could instead work a job you can probably barely stand, take the paper currency you earned from selling your life hours, walk into a liquor store, and pick out something that you honestly have no idea what it went through to become the alcohol you are about to consume.
Is the wine you just bought laced with pesticides, herbicides, or insecticides while grown? Probably.
Were those grapes cross bred with a strain of GMO (genetically modified organism)? Probably.
Does the store bought wine have a bunch of sulfites and other additives that contribute to hangovers and other negative effects? Yes it does. (See additional information link below!)
Source: http://winegifted.com/9-signs-your-wine-has-gone-bad/
Unless you handle something from start to finish, you really have no idea what goes into its creation--so get productive, and make your own!
Here is a link to a previous post we did with all the steps to making homemade wine!
We make wine when we have an abundance of fruit to use up, and we recently made some delicious varieties! Stay tuned for upcoming posts when we decant these excellent homemade wines.
We hope this will inspire you to be productive and work towards the best possible life for yourself!
For additional resources on this topic, please check out some of these links and the ones above:
http://winefolly.com/review/wine-additives/
http://www.thedailybeast.com/the-great-wine-cover-up
www.intothegardenofeden.com
Okay - yes you inspired me!
Awesome! Let us know how it turns out for you, @kate-m!
Sweeeet @kate-m. This is definitely an activity that has tangible rewards.
Yes! Yum - ederflower / elder berry wine seem like good ideas!
Yay!
nice
I remember I used to make wine from a fruit we call uvilla here, so it's not wine if your definition is correct as it isn't a grape, but anyway all I did was put the fruit in a big (about 5 gallon glass container) and just add sugar. I'd put a stopper on it but loose so the gas could escape, and about a week later it was already fermented. I used to drink a lot of it, an easy drunk, and cheap. The taste was great, it was nothing sophisticated but it did the job.
It's amazing how easy and delicious "unsophisticated" alcohols can be!
Thats right!
So easy and go intoxicating!
ahahhahahaha
We've had so many incredible wines made here at the @gardenofeden. I really love that it's a surprise every time and such a rewarding one at that. Fermentation is a really great skill to have and creating something you would otherwise have to trade many life hours for is really an upgrade to existence. Great post.
True dat!
Are you know! <3
We ferment all kinds of things down here, my favorite so far is fermented squash grog. We use big bricks of panela, which is raw cane sugar, that might affect the flavor.
Squash grog, that sounds interesting!! Fermentations are really fascinating creatures.
wow!
Very interesting. Do you post about such things?
I think that I will after this conversation! Im still getting started, tackling coffee right now.
haha first things first ;-)>
Yes simple wine is easy to make if you don't try and get all world class with it. U can even make it by adding some yeast to a bottle of grape juice from the store for $2.
I love making homemade wine! I hate waiting for the perfect age! I drink most of it before prime, lol!
It's super fun!! And when you do it yourself, you can enjoy your product at any stage you want :)
hahahaha yea me too....Im like "well I can wait another 2 months and decant it another 5 times......" OR I can just drink it right now!
hahahaha
I drink already made as I don't have the knowledge to make one . Great article nonetheless
It really is SO easy!
Watch a couple youtube videos and give it a try!
This just piqued my interest, I will give it a twirl to see how it turns out. Thanks
Awesome!
Make a post about it and include us as an inspiration and we can throw you an up vote!
When I do I will remember this :)
ok!
That's really great to hear, it's quite a fun process! It does take a little time investment, but in the end you can get drunk!
I like how you ended this reply. Lol. That's all that counts; getting drunk :)
You have the knowledge now! There is a link above with all the steps :-)
Hehehe. I still can't do it :)
this wine looks like russian samogon ( pirate vodka )
What is that made out of, @investwarrior?
i think mostly sugar, but sometimes added potatoes
Sounds Exciting!
Bravo! Great post and message!
Thanks!
I agree making wine is a great lesson in alchemy. Love the rewards !
Super easy and super alcoholic!
It's amazing how simple things can be when we understand the process and the alchemy that takes place. Sounds like you've reaped the rewards of your own labor.
Thank you for your sharing . You make wine yourself?
Yes we do! Check out the link for our how to make wine post to see the process.