Hi, I’m Chris Pearmund and today we’re here at The Winery at La Grange in Haymarket, Virginia to talk about wine making both commercial wine making and home wine making, they’re relevant to each other and a lot of similarities between the two.
Basically, in a commercial production facility we grow grapes by the acre, produce wine by the barrel and thousands of galloons and bottle of wine, 10,000 bottles a day. Before, home wine makers actually are quite simple. A lot of the similarities involved and we’re here to show you today those similarities to hopefully help you become a better home wine maker if you choose or to better appreciate a little bit more the nuances of wine making and the adult product that it represents.
In wine production the art of wine making has been around about 8,000 years and the only thing you really need are grapes, a vessel to ferment them in and an appreciation of the final beverage. As a commercial production facility one can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in lab equipment or you just use the very basics. I’m a basic kind of guy, our winery is very simple. We have four primary things to use in wine making of which a home wine maker can have as well and the total investment is only about $500.00. That is basically a refractometer which measures the sugar content of grape juice before fermentation. We also need a pH meter. The pH will measure an acid type relationship of the wine. You want a thermometer to measure the temperature of the wine during storage, during fermentation, and the most important and the most crucial element in the wine laboratory is your palette so you can taste the wine, you know what it involved in and you can tastes if there’s any direction that you don’t want the wine to go into.
The nice thing about wine is there are no products in wine fermentation or wine stewards that can develop to have the wine dangerous to you as a consumer. The only danger is over consumption and there are no of labors that can harm anybody. So if the wine goes bad it’s not going to hurt you, it’s just knock in like it is much. Provision in this country was from 1920 to 1933. Since 1933 many laws have evolved to protect consumers from abuses of alcohol and to help maintain the profitability of alcohol producers to the states in Federal Governments. As a home producer one can make 200 galloons per year of wine in their own household and not reliable for the taxes. You’re not allowed to sell the wine, you’re not allowed to do much else and basically consume it with your friends and family in your own home. But it’s a lot of fun and 200 galloons per year if you do the math is nearly a bottle per year. So it’s more than enough for any home wine maker to really appreciate.
A little bit about myself, I started in the restaurant industry. I was trained as a chef and work back at the house, work for in the house and nice restaurants with good wine list. I really had the passion for the product and how the wine integrates with food. Over the course of time I was lucky enough to become a wine maker about 18 years ago. I have been a wine distributor, wine importer and wine educator and also the politics of wine. I really have a deep rooted passion for this product in many different levels and if you’re ready I’m ready to get started to show you a little bit about home wine making, commercial wine production and maybe a few secrets as well.
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