While the WinePW group explores Zinfandel this weekend, I am sipping on a wine I made some years ago from this very same grape. I’ve been making wine at home since 2006. I don’t make it every year but I have made around 10 vintages, perhaps even more.

Every year that I made wine, I chose different grapes. Tonight I am drinking the Zinfandel It’s quite lovely, surprisingly so. I mostly drink my wines during the week when I am home. I open a bottle and have a glass without being worried about keeping the bottle too long or finishing it. I know where to get it. I still have around 40 bottles of wine I made in previous years,

I put quite a dent in the collection which was around 145 bottles at the start of the pandemic but still I have a way to go, My neighbors have held their own and shared the bounty.

This month I will be celebrating some American wines around Thanksgiving, especially those made by women so I started with myself. While only a home winemaker, I do have aspirations for the future.

Who knows. I can say that home winemaking has given me the utmost respect for those who are professionals. It’s such a balance and at any phase can go astray. Making wine at home has been one of the joys of my life these last 16 years, second of course to my son and other things but still, a real joy. I am about to bottle this year’s vintage, likely next weekend.

Cheers!