There has been a push recently by the Canadian wine kit manufacturers to rebrand the amateur wine making industry. And I think it’s long overdue. Let’s face it our craft has never been taken serious except by those who participate. There are many reasons for this. The fallout from the Prohibition era and its bad wine is one of the main culprits. At that time wine was made by unknowledgeable and sometimes unscrupulous people whose main purpose was to produce alcohol for intoxication or profit. The result was the proliferation of some foul tasting stuff that seriously damaged the reputation of “homemade wine”. Of course with this explosion of uninformed amateur wine makers came a plethora of misinformation. Bad techniques and practices that still persist today.
Then we have the commercial interests who do their best to perpetuate the legend of “homemade wine”. They joke about it and make snide remarks. When they know the truth is that most commercial wine makers started just like you and me—In the kitchen doing small batches of wine.
Wine making is a craft. It requires knowledge, persistence and passion. Crafting great wine is within the realm of every wine maker. The more you learn and practice your craft the better you will become.
So it’s time to stricken the phrase “homemade wine” from our vocabulary and replace it with crafted wine. We are not “home wine makers” we’re craft wine makers. It will take some time to rebrand but I have vowed to do my small part. From this day on I will not use the words home or homemade in any of my writings pertaining to wine making. It’s craft wine for me from now on.
