Wine Makers Learn to ‘Think Outside the Bottle’

Five men and two women gathered in the back room of a small Forks Township strip-mall shop on Thursday evening, intent on learning the finer points of mixing water, sodium metabisulfate, yeast, packaged pre-pressed  grapes and turning that mixture into something far more sublime.

Specifically, those who gathered at the Vintner’s Circle shop on Sullivan Trail were completing the first steps of a seven-week process that they were told will yield 12 gallons of a limited-edition Pacifica white wine.

Shop co-owner Adam Geffner told his seven winemaking students, all members of the Forks Area Arts Society, that they’ll actually be able to drink the result of their effort after the magic seven weeks are up, but it might be best to wait a bit longer—up to five years.

“It will be tasty right away,” he said. “But if you wait, it will develop different layers of structure and complexity.”

After the first step—“sanitize, sanitize, sanitize”—group members poured spring water into two six-gallon plastic fermentation buckets and set about adding the rest of the ingredients.

Slowly, the mixture began looking a bit less like day-old dishwater and more like something that might one day become drinkable. Meanwhile, Geffner’s students learned proper mixing technique with a long stainless steel spoon (they’ll get to use a battery-operated drill next week) and how to use a hydrometer to measure the mixture’s specific gravity.

“Within a week, most of the aggressive fermentation will have occurred,” Geffner told the group, which will meet several more times to complete the process, finishing up with bottling—the 12 gallons will yield 56 bottles—and labeling.

By the time they’d placed plastic lids on the fermentation buckets, everyone was ready to relax and kick back with something a little more finished—a full-bodied Italian Barbaresco red, which Geffner told them is known as the “queen of wines.”

For Forks resident Barb Cartal, the lone member to abstain from the Barbaresco, the session was fascinating.

“I’m very impressed with the whole process,” she said.

Larry Rush, president of the arts society, said he went through the winemaking process with a group earlier this year and will gladly do it again.

The group will return for three more sessions—next week, two weeks later and at the end of the full seven weeks.

By then, Geffner said, they’ll have learned the meaning of his favorite slogan: “Think outside the bottle.”