The Joy of Wine, The Joy of Friendship

There is a reason Jesus chose making VERY GOOD wine as his first miracle. In the spirit of being more Christ like, I have been making wine for the last 8 years. :) Altho I will obviously never make wine as good as his, it is a fun process none the less.

Tomorrow I am throwing a "Please Help Me Bottle My Wine" Party for my dear friends who are willing to give up part of their Saturday to help me bottle somewhere between 25-50 gallons of wine. Yes, that is correct. Gallons. Somewhere between the first batch of wine I made with my dear friend Dave (which, in our excitement, we bottled wayyyyy too soon and it started exploding, but I digress), and now, well, let's just say it took on a whole new dimension. I ferment whatever I can get my heands on. Tomorrow we will be bottling a 2003 Cabernet, a 2003 Syrah Port which came from my own vines (a wine I thought would be very bad but turned out to be ok and made, hopefully, very good port), plum wine (maybe port too), pomegranate wine, and apple wine. I'm thinking it's too early for the honey mead and way too early for the 2004 Cabernet, Syrah, and White Syrah (my experiment, not too often done here in the US but popular in Australia) to be bottled.

I can't even make beer....I have no more carboys. And it has just seemed overwhelming to get it all done, thus the party. I am always looking for a great excuse for a party, and this is as good as any. And it's cranberry season, time to start more cranberry wine.

So today, among other things is a day of getting ready. Sorting bottles, making labels, buying chocolate. Mike (my 14 year old) says we need to run the chocolate fountain I recently purchased at Costco, during the bottling. It's of the way inexpensive variety. I hope he's not dissappointed. And buying cheese. And bagguettes. And getting all sorts of snack foods so we can eat and bottle all day. And taste wine, of course.

Then I will be done for a while. Except for the two gallons of limoncello which is ready today. Glass anyone?