Winemaking brings a way to enjoy the fruits of your labor

It's 6 p.m. on a warm Wednesday night. The doors to Remus Farms close to those seeking farmstand fare and nursery stock and open to an enthusiastic group of adults with other plans for fruits of the vine.

John Harrison of Portage mixes up flavoring for his wine while Lance Dawson of Portage works with Bob Selent of Munster during the wine making class at Remus Farms in Hobart.
(Jeffrey D. Nicholls/Post-Tribune)

For the next few hours, the eight or so gathered in a small section of the farm stand on U.S. 6 and County Line Road will make, taste and appreciate vino -- from light, airy Zinfandels to the full-bodied red Sangiovese -- with newfound friends and fellow wine connoisseurs. There are a couple new faces, but most are repeat visitors to The Grape Hut, winemaking classes taught by owners Dennis and Janet Miles of Portage.

Veteran classmates, many of whom are husband-wife teams, listen as the Miles explain the winemaking process to the newcomers, adding their own experiences to stress a point. They are here to make a different wine, to pass around a bottle of one they had made, to sample the fruits of other classmates' labor and to enjoy each others company.

"I enjoy the atmosphere," said Darwin Klakoski, of Portage Township, who brought a bottle of his own making to pass around. "Everyone gets along and the wine is good."

Connie Shields-Macon of Miller was attending her fifth class. She started with a Sangiovese, moved to Zinfandel then Merlot. On her fourth visit, she made 48 bottles of White Zinfandel to take to her brother's wedding in Memphis, with Janet Miles making personalized labels for the bottles.

"I was the hit of the reception. People tried to buy wine from me," Macon beamed, adding her fifth wine would be an Australian Chardonnay. "It'll be my Christmas wine."

New hobby craze
While making wine has been around for thousands of years, it has turned into a popular hobby for both men and women in large part due to the Internet, winemaking magazines and easy-to-use winemaking equipment and juice kits that eliminate the need for large oak barrels, a wine press and cellar and crates of fruit-fly attracting grapes.

Price is another factor. Dennis said you can make wine for about $3.50 to $4 a bottle.

In Northwest Indiana alone, there are two options for those interested in starting up the hobby: The Grape Hut in Hobart and Red Barn Winemaker Supplies in DeMotte.

At Red Barn, operater Bob Birkett, a judge at the Indianapolis International Wine Competition, and his wife Maureen, sells more than 100 wine juice kits, as well as equipment kits, and provides one winemaking class in the spring, one in the fall, and others upon request.

"Our customers come from as far east as Fort Wayne, west as Kankakee and Bourbonnais, Ill., south as Indianapolis and north as the north side of Chicago," Bob Birkett said. "I like it when I see couples come together."

Classmates do not make wine at Red Barn's classes; Birkett takes a kit off his shelves and demonstrates the three-stage process. The first stage is done before the class. Because it then needs to ferment a week, Birkett will bring in a kit that has already fermented to demonstrate the second stage, and another kit to demonstrate the bottling, capping and labeling process.

Classmates can buy all the necessary equipment at Red Barn to make wine at home, and Birkett says he is available by cell phone from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day but Sundays to answer questions during the process. Juice kits make 30 bottles of wine and range in price from $65 to about $200.

At The Grape Hut, classes include three sessions. The first includes the lesson, initial winemaking process, tasting and appreciation. The second session includes balancing and stabilizing your wine, adjusting the tannin and residual sugar level. The third is bottling. Janet Miles said they make sure the temperature is controlled and will transfer the wine to the secondary fermenter vessel if the student prefers not to participate in this process. Also, while Birkett uses only juice kits, the Miles sometimes add grapes to the mix.

The process
After each classmate or couple chooses the wine they want to make at The Grape Hut, the process begins by pouring the juice into sanitized plastic containers. On this particular night, Dennis Miles has an added treat --frozen crushed Chilean Cabernet grapes that are added to the juice for more flavor.

Also added are yeast and oak chips, which give the wine the oak barrel flavor, and Bentonite, which the yeast clings to, said Dennis, who operates The Grape Hut on a part-time basis. Water is added to the rim of the bucket. Once everything has been added, and the contents stirred, the plastic buckets are moved to a storage facility at Remus, where they will ferment for seven to 14 days. From there, they are transferred into large glass containers and a clarifier added before the wine is bottled.

Having completed the first step of their first winemaking experience, Veronica Edwards, who works at Valparaiso University's Confucius Institute, and Susan Cai, a VU student from China, look forward to tasting their own Merlot.

Edwards said she visited different wineries while touring Italy, but this is the first time she made wine herself.

"I'm enjoying this," said Cai as she took photographs of her and Edwards making wine and with others in the group. "We went with Merlot, but I like Zinfandel; its very similar to China's rice wine."

For Dennis and Janet Miles, the part-time business has brought them more than additional income.

"We have made so many friends. Everyone enjoys themselves. It's all been good," Janet Miles said.