Now the purpose of sharing this information about where we made the wine is important because for the last couple of years after I brought the wine home there has been a large number of fruit flies in my house. The fact that the whole process was not done at my home there shouldn’t be any or just a few fruit flies flying about. Fortunately this wine season the flies were not as bad as the last one. However, in the previous year my wife and I would be having dinner with a glass of wine and when we went to have a sip there would be a fly or two floating in the wine and or flying around the glass trying to dive in. These flies became very annoying. How do I get rid of these little monsters was the question that kept running through my mind. Then the idea came to me – make a homemade wine fruit fly trap. 

I set up the trap and to my astonishment it worked fantastically. Every day the number of flies floating in the wine increased. As this was my first time doing this, I didn’t know how long to leave the wine before replacing it with fresh wine. To my surprise, after three or four days they had turned the wine into vinegar. I had heard this was possible and was one of the big reasons to keep fermenting wine covered. From that point on I would change the wine every two or three days. By end of the first week the number of flies that were being caught in the trap was decreasing and within two weeks they were gone. So this wine season just past I was all ready for these little pests. 

To make a homemade wine fruit fly trap all you need is a short wide rimmed glass, plastic food wrap and of course homemade wine. Pour wine into the glass to a level of a quarter inch and tightly cover with plastic food wrap. Then puncture small holes (just big enough for the flies to enter inside the glass) in the plastic wrap in the center of the glass away from the rim of the glass. The reason for keeping the holes away from the rim is once the fruit flies are inside the glass they will walk on the plastic wrap staying close to the rim and you certainly do not want to give them a chance to escape. 

For free step by step instructions to learn how to make homemade wine from fresh juice or grapes please visit http://www.greathomemadewine.ca

About a year and nine months ago I made Cabernet Sauvignon from grapes which gives the wine more body and colour. I have now started drinking the wine and I am very pleased with the quality of the wine. Family and friends that have tasted the wine gave it a two thumbs up.

Now this brings me back to the question, ” is homemade wine as good as store bought wine?”.

I have an Italian neighbour who also makes homemade wine and a pretty good one too. Each year he’ll pass a glass of his wine over the fence for me to try and I’ll do the same. We then chat about the wine and type of grapes used to make it. Just recently I gave him a glass of the Cabernet to try. He thought the wine was excellent and wanted to know where I purchased my grapes. He then called to his wife to come and try the wine. His wife took the glass to taste the wine and this is where I received one of the greatest compliments about my homemade wine. As she finished sampling the wine, she then said to husband “wow this tastes like store bought wine“.

So there you have it. Yes, homemade wine can be as good as store bought wine and sometimes better.

Ingredients:

For the Rack 

• 1/4 cup lightly toasted bread crumbs
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme leaves
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary leaves
• 3 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra for brushing
• 2 well-trimmed, Frenched racks of lamb with the chine bone (part of the spine) removed (about 1 1/2 lbs trimmed weight without the chine bone)
• Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

For the Sauce

• 4 teaspoons extra virgin-oil
• 2 tablespoons minced shallots
• 1 teaspoons minced garlic
• 1/2 cup dry red wine, such as Chianti or Barbera
• 2 cups veal stock or chicken stock
• 2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme leaves
• 2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary leaves
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon cold butter

Lamb Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 450 F. In a small bowl, combine the bread crumbs, garlic, thyme, rosemary, and oil and stir to blend.

Brush the lamb racks all over with a little oil. Heat a roasting pan over medium-high heat until hot. Add the racks, flesh side does, and sear them for 3 to 4 minutes until nicely browned.

Turn the racks over and season liberally with salt and pepper to taste. Let stand for 1 to 2 minutes to cool slightly, then pat the bread crumb mixture on the flesh side. Cover the tips of the bones with aluminum foil to prevent charring, if desired, and roast the rack, flesh side up, for 12 to 15 minutes for medium-rare to medium. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the meatiest part of the roast should measure 125 F for medium-rare and 130 F for medium.

Once the lamb is done, remove the racks from the oven and let them rest for 10 minutes before carving.

For the sauce:

Heat the olive oil in a 1-quart saucepan over medium-high heat for about 1 minute. Add the shallots and cook, stirring, until translucent, about 1 minute. Stir in the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Pour in the red wine and bring the liquid to a boil over high heat. Cook until the liquid has almost completely evaporated, 1 to 2 minutes.

Stir the veal stock, thyme, and rosemary. Return the liquid to a boil and reduce it over high heat until it reaches a sauce consistency, 15 to 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Pour the sauce through a fine strainer into a small pan. Whisk in the cold butter and keep warm over low heat.

To serve, cut the racks into individual chops and place 4 chops on each dinner plate. Spoon sauce over the lamb and serve.

I’d pair it with a homemade Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot or Bordeaux (a blend of cabernet and merlot). Lamb is a hearty meat and needs a full bodied and equally strong wine to complement it.

So there you have it. Enjoy!

Update:

This recipe turned out great. However, the preparation did take longer than I had anticipated.

We purchased 24 cases of wine grapes to make four demijohns of Cabernet Sauvignon. That is 6 cases per demijohn with each case weighing 16.3 kg. (36 lbs.) and would allow for the extra that is needed to replace what is lost during transfers.

So once we had divded the the juice we each had 2 demijons and 3 one gallon containers.

This October we went to purchase the same amount of wine grapes. However we were undecided in what type of wine to make. I suggested Merlot but my nephew preferred the Cabernet. The only way we were going to come to a mutual agreement was to ask for a recommendation from the supplier. He told us in his opinion the Merlot wine grapes were the best this year with the Cabernet Sauvignon wine grapes being a close second.

The Merlot won, which brings me to why ’This Was A Great Year’ for wine from grapes. This year we filled 5 demijohns. That is about 27 more litres of juice than last year!

It gives people all over the world the opportunity to adopt an Italian olive tree and receive its olive oil. The trees available for adoption are not just from their olive grove but a collaboration between a group of small scale, artisanal olive producers in Le Marche and Abruzzo. Each olive farmer keeps responsibility for the care of their grove, and all the olive oil goes into the Nudo adoption programme. Imagine having your own olive oil. There are a variety of trees that produce different tastes of olive oil.

You can also purchase olive oil that is made from hand picked olives straight from the grove.

When you cook with wine, the harshness of the alcohol burns off. However, the amount of alcohol remaining varies with the length of cooking time. A study conducted by the US Department of Agriculture’s Nutrient Data Laboratory calculated the percentage of alcohol remaining in a dish based on various cooking times. This was the result when alcohol was added to boiling liquid and removed from the heat – alcohol retained 85%. These are the lengths of cooking time and the percent of alcohol retained when simmered in a dish: 15 min. – 40% retained, 30 min. – 35% retained, 1 hour – 25% retained, 1.5 hours – 20% retained, 2 hours – 10% retained and 2.5 hours – 5% retained. Keep in mind the alcohol remaining could be of significant concern to recovering alcoholics, parents, and others who have ethical or religious reasons for avoiding alcohol.

The reduction (boiling down) of wine will intensify the flavor which includes the acidity and sweetness. So a fruity wine will concentrate those flavors and give a rather fruity flavor to the final dish. A sweet wine will provide sweetness to the final dish. Be cautious with the amount of wine you use, as its flavor may overpower your food.

Adding homemade red wine to a dish just before serving will not produce the best results.  To enhance the flavor of the dish, the wine should simmer with the food, or sauce.  If you add wine to the mix too late, it might add a harshness to the flavor of your dish. Time is needed for wine to render its flavor into your dish.  You should wait for 10 minutes or more to taste before adding more wine.

Keep this in mind that wine does not belong in every dish. If you prepare more than one wine based sauce for a meal, it could become monotonous. Only when wine’s contribution will enrich the finished dish should it be used in cooking.

Remember to:

•  simmer homemade wine with the food or sauce being cooked
• when wine cooks, it reduces and develops into an extract that flavors the recipe
• you will wind up with a harsh effect if you add the homemade wine to your dish too late.

All wines contain at least some small amount of sulphites. Although some wines have not had any sulphites added during the wine making process there will still be some amount of sulphites present. Yeast naturally produce sulphites during fermentation so there is only a rare wine which contains none. Campden – a sulphite used by homemade winemakers – is a natural compound that inhibits bacteria and acts as an antioxidant.  It prevents browning and keeps the wine tasting good.

When the sulphites in wine are heated, they are converted into sulfur dioxide which is a gas that dissipates into the air. This conversion process leaves behind a minute amount of salts that is so insignificant that they have no affect on the flavor.

If held for only one or two weeks, leftover table wine can be refrigerated and used for cooking.  If you have at least a half bottle on wine left over, pour it off into a clean half bottle, cork it, and store in the refrigerator. without air space at the top, the re-bottled wine will keep for up to one month.

Enjoy!

The first and most important rule is only use wines in your cooking that you would drink. Never, never use any wine that you WOULD NOT DRINK! If your do not like the taste of a wine, you will not like the dish you choose to use it in.

Do not use “cooking wines!”  These wine are typically salty and include other additives that affect the taste of your chosen dish and menu. The process of cooking or reducing will bring out the worst in an inferior wine. Again, do not cook with something that you will not drink.

An expensive wine is not necessary, although a cheap wine will not bring out the best characteristics of your dish. Adding good quality wine will provide the same flavour to a dish as a premium wine. Save the premium wine to enjoy with the meal.

The study started out with nearly 20,000 trim middle-aged and older women. Over time, women who drank alcohol in moderation put on less weight and were less apt to become overweight compared to non-drinkers. This was true even after taking into account various lifestyle and dietary factors that might influence a woman’s weight.

Red wine seemed best at keeping weight in check, but white wine, beer and spirits also had some benefit.

The new study, published in the latest issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, is the first to examine ties between alcohol consumption by a normal-weight individual and the risk of becoming overweight or obese.

The women were all at least 39 years old when the study began. About 38 percent said they did not drink alcohol; 33 percent said they drank less than 5 grams daily (a standard drink has about 10 grams of alcohol); 20 percent drank 5 to less than 15 grams daily; 6 percent drank 15 to less than 30 grams daily; and 3 percent downed 30 grams of alcohol or more daily (about 2 to 3 drinks per day or more).

Over an average of about 13 years, the women generally gained weight. However, the teetotalers gained the most weight, with weight gain decreasing with increasing amount of alcohol consumed.

Women who did not drink gained an average of 3.63 kilograms (8 pounds) compared with 1.55 kilograms (3.4 pounds) for those who consumed 30 grams of alcohol or more each day.

During the 13 years the initially normal-weight women were followed, 41 percent became overweight or obese. Women who drank 15 to less than 30 grams per day had the lowest risk of becoming overweight or obese, which was 30 percent less than that of non-drinkers.

SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, March 8, 2010.

This new app for iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, Droid and other smartphones has all of the wine and food pairings that were in her first app, but she has also added thousands of wine reviews (Vintages, Essentials and general list), recipes, articles, glossary terms, virtual cellar journal, winery directories and other info.

Essentially she has converted her website into a mobile app … and it’s free. You can get the app here:

http://www.nataliemaclean.com/mobileapp

Natalie will be adding new features to it regularly.

Mobile App Content:

- Find 380,000 professionally tested food and wine pairings (not generated by computer algorithm)

- Search thousands of wine reviews by winery, price, score, LCBO product code, region, grape, vintage, food match

- Check how many bottles of a particular wine are in LCBO stores (you can narrow this by your postal code to see what’s in your local stores)

- Track your wines in your virtual cellar and add your own journal notes and scores

- Search a directory of 10,000+ wineries to buy wine or plan a visit

- Find thousands of tasty, tested recipes for every wine

- Get wine savvy with articles, glossary definitions & blog posts

- Share on Twitter, Facebook and e-mail with friends

To get the free Mobile Wine App visit:

http://www.nataliemaclean.com/mobileapp