Stomping Grapes

Going to take a break from grieving today and take you back 63 years...

Stomping Grapes
By Happy Hoosier
It was a yearly ritual at our home in late August or early September that my father and mother made 20 gallons of wine each year. We had to wait until the vast majority of the concord grapes on our arbor were fully ripe…That is when you did the most good, of getting the juice out of those packages called grapes and into a 20 gallon wooden oak barrel.
I suppose my brothers and sisters ahead of me had also been drafted or volunteer, more likely both as was my case to do the mechanical job of getting that juice out of those purple grapes. I remember my first year of induction into the brotherhood of wine making. My father told me to go into the house and wash my feet better; a lot better he said than I usually do, and while you are at it he said, get them really clean. Then put on some clean socks and walk back out here because I want you to stomp some grapes.
Stomp grapes? Well that kind of sounded important, I was going to be a part of things and help out. My feet were really clean, I went barefoot all summer anyway and they were tough and I could run on gravel roads without saying ouch. So nothing was harbored between my toes maybe a rock or two but nothing soft. So yes they were clean, what now?
Well they had a really large metal tub maybe three feet in diameter. And they had cut enough grapes to fill it full. Dad said OK take off your socks and get in there and stomp. That was the signal I needed and in I went and I was allowed to stomp these grapes. It was great fun for maybe 5 minutes, and it got juicy in there too. The grapes were popping out of the blue hulls and some were getting smashed a bit and thus making grape juice. I said am I done yet? Dad said no you’re just getting a good start on the first batch. First batch, well is someone else going to help with the stomping I ask? No our feet are not as clean as yours was the reply. Wow on and on I marched through this sea of grapes and all I could think of was the words “first batch”. And 12 years later I would be doing a similar exercise at boot camp in the Marine Corps called “marking time”, where you just kept marching but you did not go anywhere.
Well after what seemed like forever and a maybe plus a few minutes more, my Dad said, “ok you can get out and rest now, but don’t run off we will need you again. I sat down and rested and watched as they dipped the fruits of our labor out of the tub and put it into a pillow case which was hanging over another clean large pan. Then they would turn the pillow case and it would get smaller and smaller and tighter and the juice kept flowing out into the pan. Finally it was turned until nothing dripped from it any longer. It was then taken down and the grape hulls inside were discarded there on the ground and the bag refilled again for another ‘squeeze’ they called it.
After a couple more of these the tub was empty and then the cutters, mom and dad, took scissors and again filled the tub with grapes and the stomper was again summoned to work his magic. The second batch and maybe a third were just not as much fun as that first time. My feet now up to the knees were a nice shade of purple and this lasted for a few days. But finally we had enough juice and sugar and maybe other things were added to the juice and it was then placed into the wooded barrel that was then set up in the wood shed in a place called the smoke room. The smoke room was also used to smoke hams and bacon when we butchered each winter but this was summer so today it would just be a good place for the wine barrel. Days would go by and I would watch it ‘cook’, as my dad called it. Purple bubbles just kept rolling out the little hole in the top of the barrel…Nothing much was happening at that time of year so sometimes I would just watch it do that. It ran down the side of the barrel and dripped onto the concrete floor below. Each day dad would add fresh water to replace the stuff that had cooked out. Maybe a gallon a day, not sure but quite a bit was an interesting process. As days went by the bubbles slowed up and finally stopped altogether. That was the day that my dad declared it “done” and put the big cork in the hole, and carried the barrel through the outside cellar door, and into the basement where it was stored under the steps leading up to my mom’s kitchen.
Now we were not really drinkers so to speak, we just used this stuff on very special occasions. And when good friends would be settled in for conversation sometimes if my dad liked them he would ask, would you like a glass of wine? Of course my dad’s wine was a work of art. His wine was known to be not only the very best but also very could we say powerful? Well I remember one particular night when my older brother Joe who usually went down for the pitcher of wine was not home and thus the duty fell to me.
My dad said, Jack do your know how to siphon the wine out of the barrel into this pitcher? I said sure dad I have watched Joe do it many times and down into the basement I went. Well I sucked on the hose and took a good swallow but then when I took it from my mouth not much ran out. So I took another good swallow and not much ran out. I had forgotten that Joe held the pitcher lower than the level of wine in the barrel. But it did not intimidate me, I just kept sucking on that hose and getting what I could in the pitcher. Surely soon it would flow better and it would get full. I started to feel kind of different than went I first went down there. I began to wonder if they would come check on me as my efforts seem to kind of all run together now and I was kind of wobbly. Finally my dad opened the basement door and said, “hey Jack how about that wine”? I think I may have mumbled something to him and he came down the steps and saw that the pitcher was only about an inch deep in wine. He carried me up the steps and told my mother that he thought I was ready for bed. The party was over for me; I did not argue and was out like a light. It was 8 o’clock in the evening and the newly ordained stomper of the grapes was down for the count. At maybe 6 years of age he was sleeping it off for the first time. I woke up that next day at noon, it was high noon and half my day was gone. Sixteen hours had passed in my lifetime between sucking that hose and eating my breakfast.
The wine by the way although made from purple grapes was always crystal clear as water. It was excellent I heard a lot of guest proclaim. Also it was our medicine when we were sick. If my dad was sick he would drink a large water glass of it like it was a glass of water and set it down and proclaim, Ahhhh. Then he would get into bed kind of like I did on my maiden voyage and he would “sweat it out”, he called it. The next day he was better and working his farm.
A few years back I decided that maybe I should bring back this lost art that I had witnessed, my parents had died and I inquired but none of my older siblings had gotten the recipe for the process. It was lost; I remember seeing the paper it was written on, they got it out each year and followed it closely so as to always have that same wine. It had been brought over from Germany and handed down; I still cannot believe we lost it. Maybe for the best, as the wine was borderline too darn good.