Welcome to my blog. I’ve been making wine for many years — it’s a passion that I enjoy sharing with friends and everyone with an interest in this wonderful art!
Wine is technically called “Bone Dry” if the sugar measures less than 1 g/l (gram per liter) of wine. “Dry” wine is 1 to 10 g/l, “Off-dry” wine is 10 to 35 g/l, “Sweet” wine is 35 – 120 g/l, and “Very sweet” wine is anything over 120 g/l of sugar in wine. This article is not about the levels of sugar, though. It is about the dry conversation surrounding the level of complications which can arise when becoming a legal winery.
Just over 11,000 pounds of grapes arrived after their long journey from Chile to meet a whole group of friends and family who were ready with gloves and old clothing to sort through them and pull out all the extras such as leaves, moldy or unpleasant looking grapes. When the first box of grapes is picked up and dumped into the crusher and the sound of the crusher and the hum of conversation is heard over the grape sorting table you know crush has begun.
Now that I am officially a Pennsylvania Limited Winery, the education keeps coming. Selling a bottle of wine comes with a great deal of “learning on the fly.” I honestly thought the problems I would have would be specific to how I make and cellar the wine, but the challenges I have had are mostly on the legal side with permits, licensing, taxes, and labeling!
