Adventures with Wine

      More Letters From Paradise
        Adventures With Wine
As a kid growing up, I never knew much of anything about wine. My family was not Italian, and we didn't live in California. There was always some "hard stuff" and beer, but never any wine as I recall.

There were a lot of things that I didn't understand as a kid, but fermentation was something that I did understand. My friends and I consumed six-packs of fermented beverage as often as we could get it. But strangely, never any wine. Some cheap wines were "Night Train," and "Thunderbird." The very titles suggests what they must have tasted like.

My first brush with wine came when my mother decided to can some grape juice. She canned the juice in quart jars with the old zinc caps with the glass liner. The jars were sealed with a rubber gasket. Understanding the process of fermentation, I decided to convert grape juice, which I thought was highly overrated,into wine. So I pulled the rubber gaskets on several jars and then departed.

Some months later, my friend Bill, and I were putting on some brake shoes on his car,  and it was in the fall of the year. It was cold working in the driveway. We decided to test the grape juice. Soon were laughing silly, and it was a wonder that we got the brake shoes on his car.

My next bout with wine was while I was in college. I was just out of the Navy, where again I consumed other beverages than wine.  I began to drink wine, and soaked off the labels of the different wines. They looked nice on the wall of the rented kitchen apartment.

Then the guy in the apartment above suggested that we make some wine. He had some connections in the railroad yard, and we made off with six or eight lugs of grapes. I think that they were Muscat and Zinfandel grapes. Then we bought a used whiskey barrel, two small green plastic tubs, some plastic tubing and rubber stoppers from the chemistry department. Also some glass tubing from the same source. We also paid a buck each for nine five gallon glass jugs. Today, the same size jugs are plastic and cost a whole lot more. Our final purchase was a plastic shower curtain. We were donated nine baby food jars. Having assembled our equipment, we then washed our feet and began to trod our grapes. It was a nice feeling under your feet. The smashed grapes were put into the barrel and left to ferment. Later, we put the juice into the nine glass jugs. Rubber stoppers with bent glass tubing  were put into each jug and into baby food jars filled with water. This  was to allow the fermenting gas to bubble through the water and escape, but did not allow any air to reach the wine.

So much for the process. When the wine settled and there were no bubbles to be seen, it was time to settle down and begin the long wait. Did we wait? We did not. I don't think that wine ever made it to Christmas. We did bottle some and put some labels on, but it was all over too soon. I sometimes wonder what that vintage October would have tasted if we hadn't been in such a rush.

Another time while I was at a bullfight in Madrid, I had another encounter with wine. This time the wine came from a wine skin handed to me from the guy seated next to me. I accepted his offer and held the skin out at arm's length, applied pressure to the skin, and shot a thin stream of wine into my mouth. I was wearing white shirt and there was not a single dribble. He was impressed, but he did not know that in college at that time we were drinking from these wine skins called a "Bota."  You never see them anymore. It's so sad, they never broke like bottles, were easy to carry etc.

And thinking more about wine I am reminded of an early statue of Michelangelo. It is called "Baccus," the god of wine. It is a youthful figure of a boy with grapes and  leaves in his hair, and holding a wine cup. You can tell by the pose that he has had more than a little wine.

The ancient Greeks and Romans drank a great deal of wine. The Greeks mixed their wine with water. This was done so it was refreshing, and nobody got drunk. The wine was mixed in a krater. This was shaped like a bucket. Drinking was done from a shallow plate-like cup with handles, called a kylax. I'm glad that the Greeks chose to dilute their wine, otherwise we might not have had the great glory that was Greece.

And you may have heard that it is said that "good wine never travels." That is true, and it is because the wine you tasted in France or elsewhere, is not the same wine. I read recently that a couple visiting a vineyard were told that they had a "Parker  Barrel." This was their very best wine and was saved for this wine expert named Parker, to taste. This guy goes around tasting and rating wines. A wine with a Parker rating of 9 is supposed to be an excellent wine. That which you buy here, might not be the same wine. Remember,"let the buyer beware."

Some people I know are "wine snobs," and only drink wines with a pedigree. Here in Hawaii our tribal group has a tribal wine, called " Paisano," from Carlo Rossi, and it comes in a jug. Paul, a tribal member from California, introduced it to us. It's a red wine, smooth without any dry tannan, neither too dry or too sweet. We enjoy it. Our friend Lori, refers to it as "that swill." And those of you from California, know all about "Two Buck Chuck," another cheap, but good wine.

And another thing. The next time some Frenchman, or salesman puts his nose up in the air, remind him that over 90 per-cent of French wines are all grown on California vine root stocks. There was a disease that attacked all vineyards in France. Sorry, I can't locate my notes on this.

I would urge everyone who likes wine to visit some vineyards. Sonoma and Napa wineries for example. New York State and Michigan produce some fine white wine. We are now also able to buy from some very fine wines from Chile, Argentina, and New Zealand.  
I continue to wonder how that 1963 October  Muscat-Zinfandel would have tasted today.
            Aloha
            Grant