From Vine to Wine

Vince Colosimo likes to work with his hands. Fixing lawnmowers, repairing motorcycles, butchering deer he hunts and scaling fish he catches.

A longtime member of a New Jersey hunting club where most members offer a unique homemade specialty – be it pickles, meats and spirits – it was only natural that Colosimo 61, of Hatboro, would put his hands to a new use.

“It was an eating and drinking thing,” Colosimo, originally of Philadelphia, said of sharing the literal fruits of the individual club members’ labor.

In the early 70s, Colosimo, then a strictly beer-drinker, decided to follow the lead of several Italian winemakers in the club. He bought the necessary equipment, including barrels, a grape crusher and 55-gallon drums to hold the liquid as it morph to wine. Of course, he needed grapes – and lots of them. For a 50-gallon batch of wine Colosimo said he used 700 pounds of grapes.

“They had it down to a science,” Colosimo said of his winemaking buddies. “You follow it step-by-step.”

Those steps are as follows: Crush the grapes, wait five days for the grapes to rise to the top and separate from the juice, remove the skins and store the juice in barrels for 60 days of fermenting.

“You can’t buy anything like this, that’s why I do it,” he said. “Homemade – there’s something about it.”

Because homemade wine doesn’t have preservatives like wine sold in state stores, Colosimo said its shelf life is a bit shorter. Beyond late November to spring the wine would begin fermenting again and turn into an expensive bottle of vinegar.

“Once it’s in a barrel it’s all up to the grape Gods,” Colosimo said with a smile.

Fast forward four decades and Colosimo, eager to bag a deer with his hunting buddies after Thanksgiving, is ready to pop the cork on his latest batch. The only difference now is that he makes 20 gallons instead of 50.

Although he is always first to taste the finished product, after making it for so many years, Colosimo said he is confident in the outcome.

“How can it be bad?” Colosimo asked of his dry red and Muscat sweet white varieties as they ferment in his basement. Apparently others would agree. “Between hunting season and meeting your old family and friends I barely make spring.”