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IF YOUʼRE NOT INTO THE SERIOUS-LY RISKY and sometimes disappointingtask of making your wine at home with realgrapes or juice you buy in neighboringWoodbridge, there is another option for youin the Caledon Region. In Bolton, in thesame plaza as Toby Jug, Vintner’s Cellar hasbeen servicing the wine needs of the Cale-don area since 2003.

Vintner’s Cellar is the first and only wineshop in the Caledon area to offer 100%juices and Premium Varietals, also a 100%juice for the amateur wine maker. For thosewith a more discerning palate, Vintner’s Cel-lar also has an Oak Barrel Club whereby ourhigher-grade wines are Oak Aged for asmoother more mature taste.

If you choose the easy and most consis-tent route and visit Vintner’s Cellar, you maybe surprised at the knowledge of its peopleand the quality and consistency of the finalproduct. Making your own wine couldn’t besimpler, the most difficult part is choosingfrom the wide range of wine varieties,grapes or types of juices to use to makeyour wine. What you do need to know how-ever is that not all juices or concentrates arecreated equal, and maybe, just maybe thoseinexpensive juices you’re buying in Wood-bridge aren’t the best for your needs.

As a consumer, here are some facts youshould know before you venture out to buyyour juice or have “just any store” makeyour wine for you.

Grape ConcentratesGrape concentrates are made by boiling

grape juice at reduced pressure and heat toeliminate up to 75-80% of the water natural-ly present in the fruit. There are usually 2-3sizes of concentrates available, 7.5 Litre, 10Litre and 16 Litre. In each case you have aneed to add water (ultimately ReverseOsmosis water for the best result) to top-it-up to make 23 Litres of wine (29-30 750 mlbottles).

Several qualities for which grapes mightbe valued in winemaking, especially fra-grance, color, tannins and varietal character,are largely lost during the concentrationprocess. This is why wine made from inex-pensive (or sometimes expensive)grape concentrates never tastesthe same as wine made from100% grape juices. Manyconcentrates suffer from avariety of deficiencies.The grapes used to makethe concentrates are notalways quality grapes.Commercial winery repre-sentatives and jobbers, whoare often present during harvest,select the soundest, ripest and sweetestgrapes. These people naturally select thebest grapes. What is left is then available formaking, jams, jellies, concentrates andraisins. For this reason the quality of thefinal product can vary widely and may not beas ‘full bodied’

The majority of the “do-it-yourself” wineshops that specialize in concentrate juicescarry a large stock of these so called ‘kits’on their shelves. In order to do that, theywould need to use either large refrigerationunits or use something called ‘inverted sug-ars’; not the best thing for wine making kits,but if you are after a very inexpensive wine,(in both cost and flavour) then the end resultwill match that expectation. (More on thisbelow)

“Today, home wine making is seeinganother resurgence, especially in Canada,and gaining steam in the United States. Ithas been made possible by the introductionof the boxed “wine kit”. This is a box usually(but not always...be sure to check the ingre-dient label) containing a plastic bag filledwith concentrated viniferous grape juice andpackaged with all the other necessary ingre-

dients to make 23 litres of viniferous wine.Just add water.

A caveat emptor warning – With the explo-sive growth in demand for home wine mak-ing kits has come the inevitable introductionof questionable products. What should youlook for in a wine making kit? First, all prod-ucts are required to list ingredients. You willfind that the second ingredient listed inmany kits is “invert sugar”. While invertsugar is great for baking, and may be need-ed in “country wines” made with strawber-ries or dandelions, it has no place in goodquality wines. Invert sugar will make yourwine taste thin and give it a “tart” and emptyaftertaste. And to compensate for the colorlightening characteristics of invert sugar,some producers have taken to adding dies to

the juice to re-darken it. Mostof these also come with anadded pack of “Tannin”flavoring to make up forthe lost taste during theconcentration and pas-

teurization process. Sec-ond, try to ascertain where

the fruit used in the kit camefrom. If you want a Chilean

Chardonnay, then by all means youshould get a Chilean Chardonnay. But if youwant a French Chardonnay, make certain thepackaging doesn’t say, “made in the style ofa French Chardonnay”. That’s a sure firegiveaway that that kit probably contains acheaper, inferior grape. And if the price ofthat “Australian Shiraz” kit seems too goodto be true, it probably is. Australian grapesare very expensive. And of course, you arenot going to get the best quality product atthe cheapest price”.

As in all things naturally produced byMother Nature, there is an old saying in thewine business; “if you fool with MotherNatures natural product, she will find a wayto fool you back”. It goes without sayingtherefore that the less additives or chemicalsyou have to add to your juice to make aproper wine, the better off the final product

will taste.What is very important in the above, is the

simple fact that wine made from a concen-trate will never taste as good as wine madefrom pure grapes, grape juice or a juice withits’ original real sugars. At Vintner’s Cellarin Bolton, not one of their concentrates useinvert sugars.

Given a choice, always choose the 100%juice with original sugars over concentratesto get a more full-bodied, longerlasting wine.

100% JuicesAt Vintner’s Cellar in

Bolton, approximately 80%

of our clients choose wines made from100% juice or better. Several qualities forwhich grapes might be valued in winemak-ing, especially fragrance, color, varietal char-acter and tannins, are largely left intact dur-ing the simple pasteurization process, whichdiffers greatly from that of the concentrationprocess. Simple pasteurization entails aprocess to inoculate, or remove the naturallypresent yeasts in order to store and refriger-ate the juice without the risk of fermentation

starting.Varietal grapes from around

the world are gathered andsorted by type to provide thehighest quality of 100% juicesavailable to Canadian homewine makers.

Making wine with grapes or100% juices have a muchlonger shelf life than winemade from concentrates, andalso have a much more full-bodied natural flavour. Winesproduced from 100% juice will

last 2-5 years with properstorage and racking

and will age(mature)

incrediblywell dueto the nat-

urally present tannins. As with concentrates,if you decide to go elsewhere to buy your100% juice, please make sure to read theingredients list and avoid any juice contain-ing ‘invert sugar’. At Vintner’s Cellar Bolton,no juice used in the store has invert sugars.

Before you head out to Woodbridge to buythat “incredible deal” on your juice, not alljuices are equal and not all deals are goingto give you the wine you want.

Premium 100% JuicesThe biggest difference in the Premium

Juices compared to the regular juice is thatthe premium juices are “area specific” vari-etal grapes. If for example you want anAustralian Shiraz, a Chilean Carmenere oreven an Italian Grand Barolo, then this iswhat you get. Where the regular 100%juices are a blend of the varietal grapes, thePremium Juices are area specific to what isbeing ordered, therefore more expensive.The trade off of ordering the higher pricedjuice will come in the form of a more con-sistent and fuller bodied wine. For example,if you are ordering a Grand Italian Barolo,you should know that the Nebbiolo grape isprimarily grown on the hillsides of the Pied-mont area of northern Italy. Because ofthis, you should also know that the climaticconditions (temperature, soil conditions,altitude of the vines) are going to be verysimilar, therefore you will have a much bet-

ter quality grape juice to start from to makeyour wine. At Vintner’s Cellar in Bolton, it isonly this Premium or VSS brand that isused in our Oak Barrel club wines, whichconsistently deliver a wine better than mostwines at the LCBO.

For many, the question of whether to makeyour wine or buy wine is very basic; why paya wine store the prices they are asking,when you can have it made for you for lessthan half the price for the Premium juiceswith Oak Barrel aging, 30 bottles at a time?In this manner, you always have wine in thecellar, and the quality of the final product ismore often better than the wine you couldhave bought at the store.

Many people have been “turned off” fromthe do-it-yourself wine shops because aninferior product was advertised as a specialsale when in fact it was ‘just an average con-centrate’ and the end result may have madeyou decide never to try making your ownwine again. Not so at Vintner’s Cellar Bolton.

Come in and visit the highly knowledge-able people at Vintner’s Cellar for a tour anda more thorough explanation of the processand the juice products available. Vintner’sCellar Bolton is conveniently located at 15Allan Drive (beside the Toby Jug) and isopen Monday through Friday from 10am to7pm and Saturdays from 10am to 5pm.Visit us on the web at www.vintnerscellar-bolton.com. You can also call the followingnumber for your Vintner’s Cellar franchisingopportunity 1-888-946-3620.

15 Allan Drive, Bolton(beside the Toby Jug)

Monday - Friday 10am to 7pmSaturdays 10am to 5pm

www.vintnerscellarbolton.com

A D V E R T O R I A L

wıne

Making

in Bolton

TOP: Red Wines, White wines, Fruite Wines and Ice wines in various stages of fermentation.

LEFT: Two 250 Litre Oak Barrels, three 300 Litre and three 100 litre stainless steel fermentation tanks help with our exclusive

Oak Barrel Club wines.

Automatic Bottle Washer, Bottle filler and Automatic

Corking Machine at our bottlingfilling station.