Bottling Grape and Cider

Oh no, we're down to our last carboys! Now we have to decide what to make next!

This is the final color of our grape wine. Gorgeous! It darkened up since the last time we took a look at it.
Bottles of grape wine, ready for labeling. We left it unsweetened since after a taste test we realized that it still seemed quite sweet. Also DELICIOUS. Seriously, we were very pleasantly surprised by the flavor of this booze. We've titled this batch "The Forgotten Carboy" since it sat around way longer than it was "supposed" to.

Here's what it looks like in a glass.

This is the color of the cider getting ready for bottling! Isn't it awesome? It smells and tastes like cider, which is a very good thing. We bottled a few gallons into beer bottles to carbonate until ready for drinking, then took the rest of it, sweetened it, and stuck it in wine bottles. This batch is titled "Thousand Apple Cider" since it took a ridiculously long time to prepare.

And here's the box Joe packed up for me so that I can share it with family. It's a jumble of all the wines we've got. I gave one carbonated and one sweetened cider to Dave, my fiancé; the requested bottles (and then some) to my parents; and one carbonated cider, one sweetened cider, and one grape wine to Dave's parents. Whew! Free booze sure disappears fast!

Maybe up next: Dandelion wine (dandelion heads courtesy of Dave's parents), peach wine (once peaches are in season), and something possibly involving rhubarb... This has turned into quite the project! My mom is now considering starting to make wine herself, and I'd LOVE to help her do it. I think if she wants to start this summer I'll start her off with cider since it takes such a short amount of time and I can help her with the bottling before I leave the state for graduate school in August.