Happy Sunday! Guess what yesterday was in my house? That's right, our merlot has been sitting pretty for about a month, and yesterday was the day we rented a corker and bottled the wine. This is my first batch of homemade wine and I learned a lot throughout the whole process, so I thought it'd be fun to talk about what's involved in making wine at home. The first step is buying all of the supplies and figuring out what type of wine you'll make. There are a good amount of things you'll need - from yeast and cleaning powders to a hydrometer, wine thief and oak chips - but we luckily found a fermentation store that easily provided everything we needed. As far as the type of wine to make, we decided to just buy grapes already crushed since this was our first go-around, and chose ... [Read More]
winemaking
Just Call Me Robert Mondavi
Hi friends! Today's topic: wine. Why? Because my hubby and I recently picked up a fun new hobby... winemaking!! That's right, besides drinking wine, I'm now making it as well. I've certainly spent some time at wineries, from getting married at one in New Jersey... ...to visiting an underground winery in Missouri.... ...from many day trips to the little California wine region of Temecula.... ...to touring Sicilian wineries with a native restauranteur as our guide... ...from picking grapes at a tiny awesome winery, to stomping grapes at a festival in Julian, CA... ....to making our way up the California coast and visiting Paso Robles, Santa Barbara, Napa, and Sonoma area wineries... ...and now living in the Bay Area within a few miles of some ... [Read More]