Making Homemade Wine and Beer

Musgo Wine - My First Attempt

Ah, musgo wine, my very first attempt at making wine. Beer brewing season was winding down in late spring 2002 when I first got the inspiration to make wine. Before that time, I really had no interest in wine. Never liked the taste. So, rushing down to the library, I took out some books and began to read. Way too much infor for someone just starting out.

Next trip was to the local winery which sells wine making supplies. John, the manager, was quite helpful and sold me the very basic stuff that I needed along with giving me some tips. Next thing I needed to do was to find either some fruit or juice that I could use.

Heading home I got thinking, "Hey I have some stuff in the freezer, maybe I can use that." At that time, Musgo wine was born. Searching thru the freezer, I found orange juice, lemonade mix and strawberries and thought, "this stuff is getting old, it must go. So I'll use it for the wine."

I mixed up the juices and the strawberries, threw in some dried currants along with sugar to bring my hydrometer reading to 1.085. Added the yeast and the other chemicals and waited. It took several days before it started to work, simply because no one every told me that the campden tablets would slow down the process.

Well after a week of fermenting, the wine was racked over allowed to age for several months. Before bottling, I added a little more sugar along with potassium sorbate to stop any further fermentation.

It got me thinking, "Could I use store bought juices? Hmm...I'll have to try on the next batch."

I finally opened a bottle in the fall of 2002 and was quite surprised at the taste. Honestly, I was expecting something rather puckery and awful. It wasn't bad and the best thing is that it only cost about a buck to make each bottle.