A pictorial by Michael Reilly
-----Wine Maker since 2005-----
Many years ago it was suggested to me that I follow my wife's family's tradition of making red wine. In 2005 I apprenticed for a season with the old Italian men who explained to me how easy it is to make wine the old-fashioned way. I fell in love with this wonderful hobby that apparently did not require much more than buying wine grapes and crushing them. As it turned out, their process is the same one that's been around for centuries where Blessed Mother aka Mother Nature takes care of the chemistry without much of any help from us mortals other than shepherding her process. My teachers didn't use lab yeast or mechanical filters or the plethora of seemingly unnatural items so prevalent in wine making today, so that's how I learned to make my wine.
Having a background in retail hardware I quickly made some logical improvements to the technical process as well as the sanitary aspects of wine making. My world of making red wine has grown to where we now make roughly 120 gallons of Table Wine and Merlot every fall. What follows is a pictorial of us making the 2023 vintage. Enjoy!