Making Wine and Feeling Fine

Who knew there was wine making in Nashua, NH? Bonus if you knew it would be in a little plaza smooshed between a pet store and a hairdresser’s. So how did I find this out?

Christmas 2018, my mom excitedly handed me my present. She claimed it was the most creative one she’s thought of, and I was going to love it! With my expectations slightly heightened, I unwrapped my gift to find…

A bottle of wine. No, scratch that, a wine bottle. There was no wine in the bottle. It was a piece of paper.

She excitedly gifted us a message in a bottle.

Just kidding. Upon opening said wine bottle, I found a gift certificate. We got to make our own wine! Who knew you could gift this?! *Cue my excitement, my boyfriend’s dread*

The instructions were simple: visit their website, book an event, show up, make some wine, and take it home with you. Easy peasy….Except I would be totally lying if I said 2019 didn’t turn into the busiest year ever and we didn’t actually end up using the gift card until March of 2020. Which was lucky, because it seems like it will be one of the few activities 2020 has to offer. In fact, we were all discussing how we felt of the pending COVID-19 pandemic (was it even named yet? Or were we all still calling it the ‘rona?). Were we worried about it? Was it serious? If we only knew…

Anyways,

If you haven’t lived in a bubble your whole life, then I’m sure as soon as you read the words “make” and “wine” your mind went immediately to Lucille Ball stomping around in a vat of grapes. Yes, that’s where my mind went. And yes, I was totally ready to drink my foot juice proudly. However, turns out, a lot of places actually skip this step. Okay, they don’t skip it, they just have hefty machines do it elsewhere. Then you have bags of prestrained (no skins, no seeds) grape juice ready to be made into sweet, delicious, small batch wine. Partly disappointing? Yes. However, when I considered that I would not only be drinking my foot juice, but also everyone else’s foot juice, I was slightly grateful for those machines for leaving the extra jam out of my wine.

So what should you expect when you go to make your own wine?

Well, first off, all places most likely have thier own methods for having people come in and make/bottle wine. We went to IncrediBREW in Nashua, NH. (Check out their website here: https://incredibrew.com/ ). The options when it comes to wine-making. This makes it available for different price points. We chose to do a group wine event, which was $60/ couple and sent you home with a total of 6 bottles of wine. You also have the option of making your own batch of wine for $160-$230 which sends home 28 bottles.

There were a few reasons that made us do the event vs. full batch:

1. My boyfriend and brother aren’t huge wine-o’s so it really was for my SIL and I- and 28 bottles seemed excessive at the time (however, if I knew how good their wine was, I probably would’ve gotten the 28 😜)
2. Events are only one night, whereas a batch is two nights (few weeks between for fermentation).
3. The Event gave you the opportunity to taste and bottle more than one kind of wine.
Overall, both choices are a great deal. You get the experience and the wine for less than a bottle of wine at the store. Did I mention they give you a tasting before you get your hands dirty?!

We chose to do the “Light-n-Sweet Winemaking Tasting and Bottling Event“. My SIL and I are both fans of sweet white wines and we, quite frankly, didn’t care what the guys wanted.

Upon entering the building, you’re greeted and given a wine glass for the night. We had Erik as our host for the night. He was not only knowledgeable about the wine, but also super friendly and down to earth. Personally, I think his demeaner and attitude made the event much more pleasurable. He acted like a person and not just a host doing their job.

After we had our tasting, we moved over to the other part of the room. Here we were separated into two groups to make two types of wine. We poured, mixed, and contained wine to get ready for the fermenting process.

[It’s important to note, that at the events, since it is only a one night experience, you do NOT bottle the wine you make.].

If you were to make a batch, you would return a few weeks later to bottle the wine you had mixed prior. Since our schedules are all different, this was great because we got to experience both bottling and making wine without having to coordinate our schedules more than once. Once the wine is prepped and put out back to ferment, you get to chose the wine you want to bottle. *Bonus tip* All 6 of your bottles don’t have to be the same kind, you get to mix and match! As for bottling your wine- you’re given sanitized, dark color bottles. you’re then shown how to bottle, cork, and label it. The bottling part goes fairly quick. It’s actually really cool to follow the process and see just how that delicious bottle of locally made wine makes it to the market’s shelf.

Would I do it again?

Abso-freaking-lutely. Erik was actually talking about all the types of parties they’ve hosted in the past, From bachelorette, work, friends. The opportunities for getting your friends together are endless! You could even do a batch (or few) and bottle it up, create a custom label, and serve it at your wedding. I mean how much of a unique touch is that to your big day?!

As for the wine? It was delicious. So delicious my boyfriend became a connoisseur after two glasses. I ended up walking out with six nine bottles of wine…all of which have been drank already and restocked. Because, Yes! You can buy them at The NH Liquor & Wine Outlet, Market Basket, and several other stores that sell local wine. They’re bottled under the name “Grape Time Winery” and EVERY purchase donates money towards local animal shelters. If that’s not a good enough reason to shamelessly drink a bottle of wine, then I don’t know what is.

Overall, the experience at IncrediBREW was pretty dang cool.

(My two favorites and highly reccomended flavors are White Cranberry Pinot Grigio and Pomegranate Zinfandel.)

*Unfortunately, at the time if this post they are not offering wine events due to the COVID-19 Pandemic*

If you’re looking for things to while stuck at home, Check out my book reccomendations here —-> https://bucketlistbroad.com/category/books/