Life is too short to drink homemade wine; at least according
to my lovely wife, who told me this when I suggested that we finally sample the
5 gallon jug of cabernet that has been percolating in my basement for the past
several years.
For the record, I am not a novice winemaker. During my single
years my brother and I spent a great deal of time manufacturing homemade hooch.
It all started, as these things usually do, over a refreshing beverage. We were
poor young students, so the discussion inevitably turned to how we could
continue getting the necessary supply of alcohol required to complete our
college degrees.
By the next morning my initial suggestion of robbing liquor
stores didn’t seem as brilliant an idea as it had the night before, so we
decided instead to purchase a beer making kit at the local grocery.
There are several steps involved in good beer production, all
of which unfortunately require time, effort and cleanliness, the sworn enemies
of the thirsty student. Our initial results ran the gamut from skunky odor to
exploding bottles, but with time and experience we finally managed to
manufacture a passable beer. If your standards aren’t particularly high.
This experience didn’t really help me develop a refined
palate, but it certainly taught me to control my gag reflex. Eventually we came
to the conclusion that there had to be a better, and by that I mean easier, way
to make alcohol in one’s home. Ideally without going blind.
We soon discovered the glory of homemade wine. We simply
poured juice into a bucket, tossed in some yeast and stuck on the lid. A couple
of weeks later we poured it into bottles. A few more weeks of aging and we had
an excellent product, at least in comparison to our beer. When anyone asked its
vintage I would proudly respond, “Tuesday.”
The inherent problem was that it took over a month to
manufacture. Clearly if you’re consuming say, a few bottles every day (which I
believe is the recommended quantity for schoolchildren in France) you have to
keep well ahead of schedule in order to ensure a steady supply. We set up a
regular timetable to make sure we always had wine available, a process that
involved using our entire kitchen and basement. When it came to assembly line manufacturing,
the Ford plant had nothing on our house.
For some reason not everyone shared our love of this fine
vintage. Admittedly, most of our wine did seem to taste the same, which is to
say not particularly good. No matter the variety of grape, it all shared a certain pronounced
flavor and bouquet which refused to dissipate regardless of the amount of time
we let it “breath,” or as some more accurately put it, “air out.”
On the positive side after the first few sips your tongue
usually turned pretty numb, making the rest of the bottle quite passable and
subsequent bottles even better.
Sadly my career as a vintner came to a crashing halt when I
met my wife. Although she enjoys wine, she was terribly biased against anything
that wasn’t made – how shall I put this – hygienically. I tried the Biblical
approach (even Jesus made wine at someone’s house) but to no avail; she simply
couldn’t overcome her irrational suspicion of booze made in a bucket in my
basement.
I begrudgingly returned to the far more fiscally painful
method of actually paying for alcohol, and we still haven’t got around to
tasting my 5 gallons of well-aged “cellar sauvignon.”
Life probably is too short to drink homemade wine, but I have
a sneaking suspicion that if I drank what’s in that jug, it might be even
shorter.
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