Cost of 2009 Production of 17 Bottles of Cabernet a Home Run

Now that I have my wine in bottles, you might want to know how much did it cost in 2009 to get it there? Would you belief $00.00? That's a home run for someone on a tight budget.

The fruit: I am very fortunate in that my fruit (the grapes) did not cost me anything. I pick the second crop and most smaller vineyard owners, if asked, would let you into their vineyard to pick after they've picked their grapes. Therefore my costs for the fruit was $00.00.

Equipment: Anyone just beginning could go out and buy devices to crush the grapes and containers to ferment them; strainers to strain the juice from the skins and seeds; a device to press off the remaining liquid; a filtering system etc.. If you go this route you will certainly incur some costs. You can find any number of items for amateur production of wines on the internet; crushers and stemmers; all kinds of containers, presses and filters.

I'm very lucky, my wife Ana, loves containers of all kinds. Years ago she came across a five gallon glass container with a small spout (like a facet) near the bottom. I used this and placed my pulp, skins and seeds mixture into it to ferment. To get it to that point, I, along with my grandchildren picked the grapes. We removed the fruit from the stems by hand and placed the fruit in a bucked (that I already had) and crushed the grapes with our hands; pouring the mixture into the glass five gallon container. There it fermented for 14 days.

I then separated the skins and seeds from the juice with a colander (a perforated bowl used to strain off liquid). This my wife also had as part of her cooking stuff. I then pressed my hands down into the colander to press out as much as I could of the juice that was in the skins and seeds. Do you know what the skins and seeds left over are called? That's called pomace and many times that's returned and cultivated back into the soil as fertilizer.

Days later I racked the fermented juice into numerous other containers my wife had (more kitchen stuff). I washed out the glass container and poured the wine back into it. From there I poured it into a funnel lined with a coffee filter. The funnel fed into the bottle. Since my wife had both the funnel and the coffee filters I didn't have to go to the store to buy either. Therefore this part of production cost only $00.00.

Bottles: The bottles I saved over time along with their corks. Two of the bottles I used were screw top wine bottles so I didn't have to use corks with these two. So again, I didn't spend any money for the 17 bottles.

So in 2009 I was able to produce my wine for nothing other than family labor. That's better than on a shoe string. Next year I do plan on purchasing another two five gallon glass containers and one five gallon plastic bucket. I'm thinking about whether I want to purchase yeast but I'm still reading up on that.

Let me hear from you. Share a little knowledge, spread the wealth and make us all a little better off.

Anthony