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According to my book, Growing Vines to Make Wines, by Nick Poulter (ISBN 1-85486-181-6), 10 litres of wines requires 14kg of grapes. A hogshead (which seems to vary from 200-300 litres) will require 400kg or more.

I hope that this helps. The book deals with growing grapes and making wine in England, but it is very well laid out, and readable for a complete novice. It might be worth your while grabbing a copy - I got mine from Vigo, and it was only £5.95 + postage.

Good luck - let us know how your vintage turns out!

brilliant ...will let you know when we can find some equipment !!! ( Invested in a smart press ...but nothing to put the stuff in !!!!!!) Spent all day looking...just cannot believe that nowhere in town stocks basic wine making stuff...what do the country folk use ..( neighbours all away at the moment ...typical )...oh for all that homebrew stuff we chucked out years ago !!!!!! :rolleyes:

Every agricultural type shop, pet shop, ironmongers, agricultural water establishment, mini DIY and tool shop in Liguria sells everything for winemaking - try looking in these local shops. It will be good to hear how you progress. We have yet to be in Italy at wine harvest to work our own grapes.

Where are you? My place, Penne in Abruzzo, still caters for the small farmer, so there is at least one shop that sells everything imaginable (and that's just what you can see throught the window). Everything for wine making, sausage making, pasta making, you name it. If you are in an area where small farms are gone (replaced by huge agricultural businesses - story all over the western world, I'm afraid - I know, I farm in England), you might find it tricky in town. If this is the case, try the internet suppliers, or go for a "holiday" to an area where there is more likely to be, dare one say "peasant farmers".

Don't despair - the future is not in mega agriculture, its in small agriculture - still never enough to pay for the cost of the land, but some things have no price - aim to produce what you want to consume yourself, is I think a good place to start. As always, in everthing, research, research, research.

And... good luck. That first bottle of wine will probably power your car... but will be the sweetest thing that you ever tasted!

We are in Puglia and everyone near us is self-sufficient !!! so there MUST be a shop in town somewhere but we have exhausted all our usual 'haunts'...still a few to try on Monday !!!
As I said before our neighbours away this weekend ....typical !!!..and most of the others were only here 'in campagna' for the summer and now the children are back at school , they have all de-camped 'in paese' !!!!....I shall have to persuade them that this isn't good enough and they must move permanently 'in campagna' !! ;) ..they are all such good neighbours and we miss them !!....but they have de-camped at just the wrong moment for us ...wine making and preparing for olive time !!!!
Still onward and upward...we have the wine press and a bucket !!! :D ...and if the wine powers the car for a few miles...that's self-suffient isn't it !! :)
At least the figs are drying nicely !! :cool:

[QUOTE=Wishful Thinker]Where are you? My place, Penne in Abruzzo, still caters for the small farmer[/QUOTE]
Also has a good cafe and the bet hairdresser for miles, sorry km, around.

[QUOTE=alex and lyn]We are in Puglia and everyone near us is self-sufficient !!! so there MUST be a shop in town somewhere but we have exhausted all our usual 'haunts'...still a few to try on Monday !!![/QUOTE]
We have a number of places to choose for for winemaking equipment and since this is (coming up to) the season most are stuffed with bottles, barrels, plastic and stainless tanks etc.

The problem may be in recognising the shops. We have a choice of the local ferramenta, five or six farm supplies shops and the local Bricopoint, which has three or four aisles dedicated to the fruit of the vine. None of them look particularly appropriate from outside since the windows and forecourts are full of tractors and brushcutters. A give away is that usually somewhere in the yard you will see pallets of shrink-wrapped green glass bottles and also the 5 litre tins used for olive oil.

I'll keep my eyes peeled when we 'cruise' the town tomorrow looking for all the 'thingys' we need... :cool:

..wine press works well ( only small stainless steel hand operated jobby )...must admit after half hour, I did ask Alex if they made electric one...can't take this 'good life' lark tooooo far !!! :D

Well, the Lord helps them that helps themselves - oft misquoted - we're all waiting for the invite!!

Your local consorzio or animal feed store should have everything you need.

We have now almost exhausted 'our' supply of shops....so far we have got the yeast and 2 bottle thingies in one shop (nothing else !), the press in another (Brico !! ), they had no bottles,flasks,no fermentation locks or yeast.....our 'favorite supplier of all things only has huge vats ...nothing else....so unfortunately still no one shop with everything in it...gonna look on ebay for fermentation locks.....wish the neighbours were here as I don't think the ½ûÂþÌìÌÃs use them anyway, but we don't know how else to do it !!! :rolleyes:

Does anyone out there make wine 'the ½ûÂþÌìÌà Way' in a small way .i.e for own consumption ???

Hi
We are in the process of buying a property in Abruzzo which has a small, old vineyard. We are looking for a book that would give us some ideas how to renovate and care for this vineyard. I will look at the book mentionned above. Does anybody have any other ideas that may mention growing vines other than in England? Or am I asking too much?

The Demetra range of practical books has a small volume something like "Come Fare Il Vino" in italian. Otherwise there are some excellent tomes available from Amazon - they are predominantly from the USA but are wide ranging and informative - sorry our copies are in Italy.

A & L
There is a good article on making wine by Adriatica called 'before olives you make wine' do a search on 'bordeaux' quickest way to find it.
I don't know how many grapes you have but we did about 15kg here in Bristol using sterilized wine bottles without yeast or airlocks, the juice produced its brown scum and then we put the juice in some new bottles. Some may be drinkable others may be vinegar.
It was good fun.

Saluti
Stribs

Weirdly enough when I was a kid well 16, I used to firstly make these vile brews, loosley referred to as 'wine' from boots kits. I moved onto making my own wine firstly from syrups then boiled up fruit, sugar or honey. I used demi-john, a special air-bubbling filter, and special high yield yeast...alas whilst at college my evil sister deceided her and her best friend (aged 15) would open the odd bottle here and there hence my blackberry and my quince wine was drank.

We have white grapes, dont know if its worth putting all our grapes together and doing a joint, press, fermentation, bottling project..bloody white though. :cool: Could ask our gardener/old owner after all he planted the blighters.

[FONT="Book Antiqua"][SIZE="3"]I've made home made wine in the Uk for years but every September those pesky blackbirds eat my grapes so I stick to apples,gooseberries and plums!!Cant wait to get stuck into the real thing next year in Abruzzo.

If you have people coming out from the UK why not get them to buy the fermentation locks here.Wilkinsons sell them.The are not too heavy so they could send them.

I use baby bottle sterilising tabs to clean all my stuff and it seems to work OK.Don't empty it into the drain if you have a septic tank though!

If you have grapes you shouldnt add yeast or sugar you rely on the natural reaction in the fruit.You may have 'wild yeasts' on the skins which make the wine bad so add a camden tablet ( I dont as I don't like chemicals) Do keep racking your wine as if you let it sit on the sediment it will taint it.You will need some plastic tubing to do this.

If you want I will look up some more info in my books here?

Good luck

Becky[/SIZE][/FONT]

[QUOTE=alex and lyn]We have now almost exhausted 'our' supply of shops....so far we have got the yeast and 2 bottle thingies in one shop (nothing else !), the press in another (Brico !! ), they had no bottles,flasks,no fermentation locks or yeast.....our 'favorite supplier of all things only has huge vats ...nothing else....so unfortunately still no one shop with everything in it...gonna look on ebay for fermentation locks.....wish the neighbours were here as I don't think the ½ûÂþÌìÌÃs use them anyway, but we don't know how else to do it !!! :rolleyes:

Does anyone out there make wine 'the ½ûÂþÌìÌà Way' in a small way .i.e for own consumption ???[/QUOTE]

In response to the last question, we have made our own wine the old traditional way for the last 3 years - or at least we have a local who tends the vines and we just help with the "vendemmia"! We already had a couple of huge wooden barrels in the cellar (we make 5-600 bottles), loads of demi-johns, and an old fashined wine press. However, the "gardener" brings his own electric press and this year brought a plastic barrel with him for the white (we have red and white grapes) - as we complained that the white was undrinkable!!

Its quite an unbelievable process - in that the whole bunch of grapes (along with wasps, hornets etc etc) go into the press. The mixture is left to ferment in the barrels for about a week, then transferred into demi-johns. It is then ready to drink from about April!! Absolutely nothing is added - and the locals were quite offended when I asked what else went in!!

The red is becoming more drinkable - last year's harvest was quite good, but it is completely "hit and miss". The bottling process is quite a laugh as well - we are advised that you only need swill the bottles out with water before bottling.....but I have since found some cleaning/sterilising solution in "Brico".

There is also much discussion on whether you should use corks, or plastic tops. As with most things in Italy, everyone has a different opinion!!

Anyway, it's great fun and although we sometimes wonder if its worth the effort (especially as there is really too much for us to drink and the locals don't seem to want any of it), we shall continue, at least for now....