Harvesting the vineyard | Home winemaking, part I

Confession: I am a wine fake.

I live in a giant wine region. I sometimes write about wine. I talk about wine with people who love wine and who make their living from wine. I’m given wine by the glass and bottle. And after one bad night (a half-decade ago) involving me, myself and I and two bottles of red wine, I’ve been off of the liquid.

But you might not know that. Because I’m pretty good and doing the whole “oh” and “ah” and “really?” thing quite well.

Truth is, I know nothing. I know that Two-Buck Chuck is what we drank in college, that the Merlot industry was hurt when the movie “Sideways” knocked the variety and that I’ll buy anything if Sofia Coppola makes a cute, homemade commercial of it (remember those for her Sofia mini wines in the can?).

But, this is changing. I’m growing up, friends. Maybe, soon, I won’t be a fake, and I’ll actually be able to talk to you about your wine.

I’ve been experimenting. Now, when I smell a glass of Cabernet, I no longer get insta-headache. That’s progress, people. I don’t find Merlot all that bad. I love mead. And I’m pretty much just saying, “go with it,” whenever anyone pours it into my glass.

I’m turning over a new leaf, and my interested started a little when friends and I pulled back a lot of leaves to pluck purple grape clusters that we took home and processed for wine.

I had no idea the process was so extensive. I thought we would just throw grapes into buckets; I didn’t know we’d need to test sugar levels of each bunch and look for the high-quality clusters.

But we did, picking three different varieties that morning.

Here is a look at the first vineyard we harvested on a sunny morning. I’ll be back with a whole bunch more.