Can't hardly walk down an alley the last six weeks without slipping on a grape skin or getting splashed with grape juice!

I haven't made wine for a couple of years. A friend of my dad's crushes grapes every year and gets about 150 gallons. I would always help with the crush and the press and take home about 15 gallons. But I haven't crushed grapes with him for a few years and hadn't given it much thought until I passed a neighborhood produce store (just a half-mile from the house) and saw their message board advertising wine grapes and pails of fresh juice. Bought two buckets of burgundy juice a couple of weeks ago and just grabbed a bucket of blush zin.

Assuming everything goes well, I should be drinking the zinfandel next summer and the burgundy by Christmas (although that might be a little early for the Big Red!).

tony b.

I like to drink wine more than I used to -- anyway, I'm drinking more...

I'm a wino. I've drank four bottles in the last four nights but I think I should take a rest tonight. I've really taken to Spanish red Tempranillo. Very fruity and pleasureable. Those that like fruity drinks like Sangria should try it.

But I wouldn't have a clue where to start if I made my own. My dad used to always make his own ale. I loved watching and learning the process as a kid. Except for the one time I dunked a load of kittens in the barrel.

I wouldn't even know where to begin to make wine, except for the grapes of course. :p My father-in-law made wine once from a grapevine we had in our yard. He couldn't stand to see the grapes go to waste. Aside from an occasional glass of wine with dinner, I'm not a big wine drinker (unusual for an Italian).

I give you credit TonyB. I assume it takes a lot of time and know-how. You should bottle it and sell it. Happy stomping, oh....and stay sober.


TIS

Zinfandel is my absolute favorite, but I never knew that the grape did well in Chicago.

My grandfather used to make homemade wine when I was a kid and he would let my cousins and I sneak a taste of it when we went over to his house. Good ole grandpa!


Don Cardi

My grandparents used to make their own wine AND beer, but that ended when they sold their house in the 1960's. However, my husband is now making his own Limoncello. He's never tried it before, but he expects that it will be ready for Thanksgiving.

I just PMed you my address!


Don Cardi

My husband and I fell in love with Limoncello when we were in Italy. However, the Stock brand of Limoncello is all but impossible to get in the US. When we were in Italy in 2001, we bought many bottles, and are just down to the bottom of our last one. So, my husband found this recipe and is giving it a shot. Limoncello in Italy was only about $4 or $5 a bottle when we were there, so I told my husband we need to go back. He told me to spring for the $20 bottle in the liquor store rather than pay the $1200 airfare!!

I lived in several Italian neighborhoods in Brooklyn, NY. As YTB said, you couldn't walk the streets at this time of year without slipping on grape skins or stumbling on empty grape boxes.
They all made wine in big quantities--150 gallons wasn't uncommon. When wine became chi-chi in the Seventies, you could find stores in every strip mall that sold winemaking kits in gallon increments. But there's no point in making wine in small lots, and not in the plastic jugs they provided in those kits. The families in my old neighborhoods had big casks, which is the right way to make wine.

:) Limoncello! It's a most famous liquor in the Neaples area. Did you taste the limoncello ice-cream as well? Yummy! How nice your husband is going to make it himself!!!! Keep me updated, please!

Had Ballatore a few nights ago. My friend's family's favorite champaigne. It was alright...

Turnbull -- on the way into work this evening, I passed a house that easily had 200 empty grape lugs on the curb waiting for garbage pick-up tomorrow. That's 3-1/2 TONS of grapes and that will probably yield 250-300 gallons.

Plaw -- because of the severe winters, the midwest is a notoriously difficult place to grow the grape varieties (vitis vinifera) typically associated with good California or imported wines, including zinfandel. So the grapes or juices used for winemaking are trucked in from California, usually from the Central Coast, or occasionally imported from Europe. The native grape varieties in the midwest are a different variety (vitis labrusca or vitis rotundifolia) or they're engineered hybrids which tolerate the climate, and other environmental factors, better than the vinefera variety.

Did you know the zinfandel grape is one of the few that can produce a white or red wine? The dark-skinned grape yields a clear juice when the grapes are crushed. Crushed and pressed immediately, you'll get a white wine or a blush. Crushed and allowed to ferment on the skins before pressing, the naturally occuring acids and the alcohol will extract color from the skins producing a rose or red wine depending on how long the fermentation takes place on the skins.

Sicilian Babe, look for the Caravello brand of Limoncello. They also make an orange (Orancello?) which is also very good. Limoncello poured over a Johnnie's Italian ice has become my personal version of an Italian lemonade! How is your husband making his Limoncello?

tony b.

FYI, and just for fun:

http://www.sicilianculture.com/wine/