I thought this article made for good reading. The U.S. wine and grape industry contributes $162 billion (USD) annually. Here’s a link to the article:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/17/BUGSMNK5807.DTL

Word has it that there was a little bit of a glut of Frontenac grapes in Minnesota this fall.  This may not be totally surprising considering the amount of Frontenac vines that have been planted in the past 5-7 years. While the number of MN wineries continues to grow, it may not be growing at a pace to keep up with the amount of vines being planted. This is sure to change, although the same issue may rear it’s head again five years from now when the first harvests of Marquette grapes begin to fill vineyard bins.

During the time that I’ve been growing grapes and making wine, I find myself usually searching for the right tools to do a number of things - from converting between temperature scales to calculating how many vines will fit in an acre at various row and plant spacings. So I finally started creating a set of vineyard and winemaking tools. Click here to view the tools in a popup window.

I’ll admit that I’m no expert (yet) when it comes to making wine. But here’s one lesson that I learned that I felt was worth sharing with others.

When it comes down to pressing your grapes, you may not need to buy or rent a press. In the fall of 2005 I made my first batch of wine from fresh grapes. I purchased about 100# of Frontenac grapes from a local vineyard and got them started fermenting sometime in late September. A few days later, I happily plunked down something like $60 to rent a grape press. It was one of the ratcheting type presses. I took it home and proceeded to scoop the grapes and skins into it from the primary fermenter. What I soon realized is that there was not nearly the volume of grapes/skins there for the press to actually be able to do it’s thing. After a few frustrating moments (and thoughts about pouring $60 down the drain), I began to scoop the skins back out and into a cheesecloth bag that I have. I then squeezed the bag over the primary for a while alternately opening the bag up, fluffing up the pomace and squeezing again. This worked just fine and I now know I won’t be renting a press for any small volume batches of wine I make.

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