A little Off-Topic: Who are you?

I am a hobbyist. My initial interest was the propagating and growing fruits hardy in Zone 3 of Northern Minnesota about 90 mile from the Canadian border. Our first wine was wild grape wine made using a chokecherry wine recipe. It turned out very sweet but consumable. Fruits that we grow and turn into juice that we have make into wine are the currants, red and black, juneberry, wild grape, Nanking cherry, rhubarb and various plums. (It is easier to "share" a bottle of wine than a jar of jelly). We have been doing this close to 10 years and are learning the value of aging through some highbush cranberry wine I bottled this year. Presently have about 80 gallons in various stages. Dick Kruse

Hi Everyone: I am a retired Mechanical Engineer. I have been making wine and beer for the past 5 years. Have had to put a lot of projects down the drain, but now I'm trying to learn the correct way now so it wont be so expensive. I enjoy this group and all the knowledge I am getting from it.

I'm a hobbyist, with big dreams.

I started making wine with a friend who had moved to a place with grapevines on it. His dad had been a home winemaker, so we had a good advisor. So over the past 5 years I've made wine from grapes and grapejuice, no box kits. I'm now making 30 gal/year on my own, and am still helping my friend with their own 30-50 gal/year.

Now that I've also moved to a place with some land to grow grapes (Southern Washington, across the river from Portland Oregon), I'm planning on planting Riesling grapes, and would love to keep expanding to the point of being a professional winemaker or starting my own winery at some point.

I'm an engineer by training, with a great interest in the biology, chemistry, and art of winemaking.

Rob

I'm a college chemistry instructor. I started making wines as a graduate student in Edmonton, trying to revive a family tradition that my mother had lost interest in (she got back into it in a hurry, though). I've made a few kits, but I find I much prefer fruit wines- raspberry, peach, blackcurrant, saskatoon[1], cherry. I've made a lot of apple wine, not because it's my favourite, but because apples and crabapples are often free for the picking in the back yards of many neighbors, friends and relative.

I've been out of wine-making for a while (since I had a long run of bad luck, and a few moves), but am now getting back to it (when the three small children allow). I'm also now living in the Okanagan, which makes it hard for people to understand why I'm not making grape wines, or why I'm doing it at home instead of going to a "U-brew", where you buy the kit and pick it up when it's ready to bottle. But that's just me.

[1] One of my many pet peeves is when saskatoons are referred to as "saskatoon berries" or, worse, "Saskatoon berries", by someone who thinks that they are named after the city, rather than the other way around. "-atoon" is a Cree prefix for fruit or berry, so tacking on "berry" at the end is as redundant as "strawberry berry" would be

Cheers,.

---The Mad Alchemist---

Email sent to the above address, unless clearly marked as wine or heraldry, will be deleted unread.

Gidday Rudolph,

I have been making wine for about three years now as a hobby under the house.

I am a Mechanical Engineer in the Building Services industry (ie air conditioning) in Queensland, Australia and moved here from the Netherlands some 8 years ago.

Out of interest and because of the price of beer I started brewing beer from cans. Originally just the cans from the supermarkets, but gradually introducing more upmarket products from the Homebrew Shop.

One day three years ago I happened to have to visit the homebrew shop when my wife was with me. I was looking at wine kits and she said " Just get one". I bought one kit, container and CJJ Berry's book, and that was the beginning of it all. I haven't looked back since, especially after discovering Jack Keller's website and this Google group.

I make a couple of kits every year, and try to make as many fruit and vegetable wines as I can put my hands on. Currently fermenting are honeydew melon, rockmelon, paw paw, pineapple, mandarin, eggplant, fig & raisin, grapefruit, banana & raisin, tomato, dragon fruit, and probably some more that I can't remember just now.

So far my favourites are orange&tangello and pineapple. This may change over time when more wines mature and are tried. Karel Brisbane, QLD Australia

Hi,

I am going to be studying oenology and viticulture full-time next year, I am catching up on my chemistry this year, as well getting settled in St.Catharines and Brock University. I started making wine almost on a whim and now have quite the cellar full, been at it a couple years now, and have learned a lot already. Looking forward to my studies. My first attempt from grapes can be seen online it's kind of ghetto, because we only had a small press, but it's coming along quite nicely now, and should be ready for bottling some time in the new year.

cheers!

I'm a mild-mannered economics professor by day, and I've been making beer since 1991.

With the beer, I go all-out. It's flower hops, all grain, and liquid yeast.

My usual supplier (grape & granary) seemed to have more emphasis on wine & cheese. So I started with cheese (I'll be ordering a press in the next couple of days; I just did the simple ones so far), and then ordered a couple of the brewking (vintner's reserve?) concentrate kits, and then a bucket of juice . . .

This year I ended up with three buckets of fresh juice.

I like the results, but I'll probably stick to the upper end concentrates & commercial buckets. I certainly like the results, but really good beer is still my thing most of the time. It gets along with my sinuses (sini? :) *much* better. Currently, I'm cutting way back on the clarifiers to see if that helps.

hawk

Err, you do realize that google only archives this group (and the rest of usenet), don't you?

A newsreader or most browsers can get it without google. In a browser, you typically need to type "news://rec.crafts.winemaking".

hawk