Ever get the urge to make homemade wine? I had the chance to do so this summer with a group of friends. We went to the Vine Park Brewing Company on West 7th St. near downtown St. Paul and mixed up some Pinoit Grigio and Shiraz. It was quite the process, and, of course, it also involved lunch and a little shopping, too!
The steps involved just pouring, adding "stuff," and mixing, starting with plain old water.
This is the pinoit grigio mix 
After adding all of the ingredients, the pail was sealed, but there was a tube for "breathing."
The steps were repeated for the shiraz.
Wood chips were also added to the red - looks kind of yucky.
Here's the shiraz mix.
Ah, that looks better.
After all the ingredients were added and the pails sealed, they were put aside for about 6 weeks. The brewery employees stirred, strained, etc. on a weekly basis, and then we returned for the bottling process (and more lunch).
We started out with sterilizing the bottles by pouring a solution into them,
and letting them drain. That's our pinoit grigio in the background, waiting to be bottled. Looks kind of like....no, I won't say it. :-)
Here's the bottling machine, 
and the corking machine.
Finally, we added the labels. Now, the wine has to age for awhile, 6 months for the white and 9 months for the red.
Looks like a lot of wine - sure hope it's good! I think we better have a BIG party! Actually, I only got 6 bottles of the pinoit, since I'm not a big fan of red wine. Jean only got red, and the others got some of each. If anyone is interested in more details, just google "vine park brewery." You can make many different kinds of wine, and also various kinds of beer- it was a fun time!
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