Wine

I remember wine from my younger days, days gone by. My Dad made his own wine and when I was really young I would stomp on the grapes.  When I was older I helped turn the handles of the wooden press watching the juice rush out between the slats. Dad would pour another box of grapes into the press bucket and we would turn the handle again and again squeezing all the juice from the grapes.  Dad bought whiskey barrels to keep his wine in and kept the barrels in a cellar with a dirt floor in each house we owned. The last time we made wine I recall Dad adding lots of what I thought was brandy to it.  Then we would wait. As a young girl I would sneak down into the wine cellar, smell that musty odor, and get the glass that sat on the wooden rail that supported the barrels.  I would open the pour spout and get a few drips of wine.  I loved the smell. I would roll that few drops of fermenting grape juice on my tongue.

Over the years I have saved some bottles of old wine; I just liked looking at them from time to time.  As we are cleaning out and moving to another path on life's journey, I have decided to open then and enjoy them. The first I opened was my Dad's old wine.  I thought it would be vinegar as it was in an old whiskey bottle, but to my surprise it is wine, pure and smooth.  I flashed back to sitting around the long table in our basement at Edgehill with family filling all the seats, everyone talking at once, and the wine.  I have been enjoying a small glass each evening savoring the woody taste, the tingle going down, the memories.

There is an Elderberry and a Dandelion from 1936 and two bottles of Chianti from the year I was born, 1951.  As I turn 60 this year I think it will be a grand time to open them!

We have a wine from the Ship Hector Launch in 2000 and a French wine from our trip in 2008 that we may just pack away with the storage items for a few more years.