Little old Oberlin wine maker
An offhand account of the heady hobby of this little old Oberlin wine maker: David H. Benzing, assistant professor of biology at Oberlin college and a fascinated fan of the grape.
The grape is a fantastic little chemical plant that has
fascinated man since its vines first curled a tendril
around the pillars of history.
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Man has minced and munched them, beaten and baked them,
stomped and tromped them, peeled and congealed them, dried
and fried and fermented them.
The grape is a near-perfect, self-contained fermentation
package. Inside the skin is just about the right amount of
sugar and acids to satisfy ravenous yeasts and bacteria
hanging around on the skin. Crush the grape and these
interact, forming alcohol and eventually wine, and possibly
vinegar.
David H. Benzing, assistant professor of biology at Oberlin
College, is among those fascinated fans of the grape. He
has been with the college five years. His specialty is
plant physiology and ecology.
What's all this got to do with wine making? Not a thing
except that Benzing happens to like good wine and he's
convinced that some of the best wines can be homemade.
As an eighth grader he turned grape snatcher, raiding the
vines of neighbors in Mansfield to make his first batch of
wine. Was it a success? Well, not so much a success as a
blast. The whole mess blew up.
He tried again in the 10th grade and this time it was a
success . . . but a pretty sour one. Nobody could drink the
stuff.
But now, with some years or experimentation behind him.
Benzing turns out a wine that would make old Fourchette
Escargot tip his hat, blow a kiss and whisper, "le beau
vin!"
With a sharp eye for a bargain, Benzing says, you can
outfit yourself with all the necessary equipment for wine
making for less than $100. If you are good with tools, you
can make the stuff for a fraction of that.
His equipment includes a hand-operated grape press he
picked up at an auction. However, these can be purchased
new at modest cost.
His grape crusher is handmade, purchased from a farmer.
It's simply an open-ended hopper with a wooden cylinder
studded with brass nails and driven by an electric motor.
The crusher is mounted on a large crock which catches the
crushed grapes.
He uses five-gallon glass bottles (carboys) for fermenting.
He buys them from a firm that sells spring water. These
bottles are chipped and cannot be used commercially but are
good for home use.
For storage, used wine bottles gathered from friends. The
corks he buys from a mail order firm. Wine corks are
difficult to get from local outlets.
But how about the bag used in the grape press? Is that a
hard-to-get item? Well, not really. He uses the family
laundry bag when it is not being used for other things.
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