Wine Making

First off we need to welcome back Greg Flynn from his 6 month (almost 7) deployment to Afghanistan! We are so happy to have him back state side and as our new roommate! :) Greg and Deanna will be moving this summer also. Although we aren't moving to the same location (sad) they will be moving to Dayton Ohio which is exactly where they wanted to go. Thankfully with this location Deanna gets to keep her job that she enjoys so much! Bonus for her!! No job hunting when they move!! (lucky!!)

Last night we drove up to Nashua, NH to join some of Brent's co-workers for a wine making, bottling and take home night! It was a lot of fun and we were able to get Greg and Dee involved in this first time experience as well.
First we MADE the wine. No grape stomping, that part was already done but we were in charge of mixing. Greg is pouring in the juice base.

I was happy to stir. Seemed easier than the heavy jobs...

The "Flynn's" working together as Greg pours in the almost Grape Jam like contents into the "strainer". This would then get tied off and poked to help let more juices come out of the grape skins.
Instead of putting their wine into the wooden barrels they put the wood into the wine. Here Brent is stirring in the wood pieces that would give it the wood flavor.
(I skipped a bunch of steps but those were some of the best!) Once we were done they suck the air out and it sits for 4-6 weeks for fermentation.

Next stop- packaging the wine....

First stop- Fill the bottles.

This is the machine that they used to cork the bottle. Bottle goes under and cork in that whole. When you pull the lever down it squeezes the cork tight and is pushed down into the bottle to fit!

Brent in action corking!

Here is a better picture of the corking process!

After corking it's time to put the topper seal on. You use this machine that you put the loose topper on and put it under this heater and the seals to the bottle. (I was TERRIBLE at this. It was all bubbly and I was quick to give up that job.)
After this point we labeled the bottles with which ever wine was bottled. The last step was to put it in the carrier bags. Everyone got to take home 6 different bottles of wine! It was a really neat experience. Now the wine has some aging to do before drinking but it's pretty cool that we bottled it ourselves!