Several of you have responded about my story of making wine with my Father.
Now let me tell you how it was making Wine with my Uncle, in a grand scale.
First of all we are well aware of the wine making process of grinding,
fermenting, pressing and waiting. The process is the same here it is just done
in a grand scale.
Let me set the stage and tell you that my Uncle had just over 8 Acres of
Grapes. Believe me that's a lot of grapes, especially if you have to hoe the
grass from around the plants as I and my three Cousins had to do on a regular
basis. Somehow my older Sister never had do the hoeing, we never thought that
was fair, and quite frankly I still don't think it was fair. We think that it
was our parents way of keeping tabs on us and making sure that we stayed out of
trouble.
Since it was such a large process, the regular methods that my Father and I
used would not work in this operation. Uncle Frank besides being a Farmer of
Grapes, Peaches and Sweet Potatoes, was a Plumber and Well Driller. He was
also what I termed as the Rube Goldberg of the Family. If he couldn't afford
it, he made it.
In the basement was an extremely large pit that was 20' Long by 16' Wide by 3'
High. Set along side of this was a Large round hole dug into the basement
floor, this had to be set lower than the main pit so that gravity would let the
juice run through a 2" pipe that from the main pit. When the juice was drained
off into large metal containers set into this lower pit, it was then pumped
into the storage barrels. All of the equipment used was hand made and designed
by Uncle Frank; pits, metal tanks, pumps etc.
Now that I have outlined the process, let me tell you what made this special.
If you remember my Father thoughts that you must remove the grapes from the
stems, Uncle Frank also thought the same way. Now mind you this all went on in
the late 40's early 50's prior to the time when all these fancy
destemmer/grinders were made. Uncle Frank devised a separator made from
chicken wire stretched over a wood frame with 6" sides. The grapes would be
put into the frame and you simply would rub them back and forth until all the
grapes would fall through the wire, leaving only the stems and leaves on the
top to be discarded. The grapes were then put through my Fathers grinder with
the handle removed and a pulley and belt connected to an electric motor. The
ground grapes went down a coal slide into the basement pit. Large rakes were
used to spread out the grapes in the pit and to punch down the grapes every day
for the next week.
When we began to draw off the juice into the metal containers in the lower pit,
it was pumped from the metal containers in the lower pit into Oak Barrels set
into racks in the basement. When the juice stopped freely running, the
pressing process began and the Barrels with the pressed juice were marked
separately. First Press, Second Press, etc. Each barrel was fitted with a
brass wine spigot that had an accommodation for a padlock. Here is the part
that Elliot Ness would have had fun with. Now we had a large Family, but in no
way could consume, depending on the harvest the 30 or more, 55 Gallon Barrels
of Wine. Do the math that's one large hangover. Since the Town of Hammonton,
New Jersey was predominately Italian, there was a good market for the Wine.
The Wine was sold to the locals Italian families, and a few Med-a-gon-es, by
the Barrel and the price was based on weather it was pressed grape or free
running juice. The purchaser was given a set of keys to the padlock of his
barrel and could come into the basement any time he needed to fill his jugs
with wine.
I guess if necessary, it could have been argued that Uncle Frank sold them the
juice and a place to store the wine, but we were fortunate that the authorities
never found out, and we never had to argue the point.
This was one of the many occasions for the Family to get together. Nona would
spend the weekend in the kitchen cooking and baking. She had to feed a tired
hungry crew. All the work was done primarily by Family members, My Mother was
the oldest of the Family, with Uncle Frank being the only boy, there were four
other Sisters, together with their spouses and children, there were quite a few
hands in the field. We even had large Polish Family that My Mother met through
her work in the Clothing Factory in Philadelphia come to help. They did this
just to get to Nona's food. As tired and sore as we were when this was
finished after tasting the first wine, we would begin to look foreword to next
years harvest, and the Pig Slaughter. Yes we used to slaughter pigs and make
dried sausage and other delicacies.
This is one of the many fond memories that I have of my Family and My Italian
Heritage. I have 12 acres of land here in Virginia and I have planned to start
a Vineyard in the next year or two, to supply grapes to the local wineries. It
won't be the same but it will certainly be a small reminder of how great it
was, to coin a phrase "Growing up Italian".
I hope I haven't bored all of you. Sometimes I think I could ramble on and on.
It would be nice if reading my memories reminded you of times that were
special for you. I would like to thank Tom Lazzara for his original posting of
Wine Making, for reminding me of those good memories.
Ciao and Pleasant Memories.
