The New Year will bring with it a new experience in my urban vineyard endeavor.  As the picture shows, most of the leaves have fallen.  There are still a few stubborn stragglers remaining, some leaves clinging on, reluctant to be separated from the vine, while others merely need the slightest of touches, or a gentle breeze, to let go and return back to the earth.   I was fortunate enough to receive a winemaking kit and juice this Christmas which has been the spark to get the making of wine underway.  After cleaning up all the leaves this past weekend I sat down to do a bit more research.  Now every day I fight the urge to go ahead and mix it up and see where the juice takes me.  My more calculating side reasons that if I am going to put the time and effort into this I want to do it right and not make so many mistakes that I can’t tell which one is responsible for a bad batch.  Of course this means far more research than a full time job and a family will allow, but knowledge must be obtained so that means late nights of reading and trolling through internet forums like Winepress.

I am still debating whether I will attempt to make any wine from the grapes produced this year but either way a test run or two before playing mad oenologist on my own grapes seems prudent.  The kit will be much easier than from my own grapes so success or failure with the kit, will likely help to decide if I want to go for it this year or not.

Over the next several posts I plan to cover my experience with the kit.  It will undoubtedly highlight how truly new to this I am.  After splashing around in the kiddy pool of winemaking research I am getting a bit concerned for my prospects.  You see while I love to cook I am an abject failure at baking.  Three Christmas dinners in a row I have tried to make Yorkshire Pudding and three Christmas’ now I have had a huge sheet of flour leather adhesive permanently attached to the pan.  

What does my affinity for flour leather have to do with winemaking?  Well, I wonder, is winemaking more akin to cooking, where you can make adjustments along the way and mistakes can often be corrected by rebalancing spices or quantities? Or is it more like baking, with its strict portions and precision methodology to obtain the desired form, texture and flavor . . . the slightest deviation and all is lost?  Perhaps it is a combination of the two.  There is still much reading and research to be done.  At the moment, it is sounding more like an insanely complex Yorkshire Pudding, but I will not be deterred.  Not only will I take this effort on, I will publish my folly for the world to see.  It can’t be worse than flour leather, can it?  The journey begins next post!