Q1: Today you wanted to tell us that we can make our own wine from grapes, right here in Montreal…

Making your own wine is part of the tradition of many families, and has become an addictive hobby for others. The best part of this hobby is that you get to enjoy drinking the results, and you can stock up on perfect and incredibly inexpensive ($2-$3 a bottle!) gifts for holidays or for an anytime house gift.

Q2: Did you ever make your own wine?

Once, while I lived in Greece, I was taken to their annual wine-making festival. After you paid an admittance at the gate of a park, you were given a crude hand-made ceramic mug. This was a lush park, not unlike Mont Royal, and as you strolled through the thick trees and pathways, you eventually would come upon large square cement shallow basins (like huge baby pools) where each grape grower had dumped his stock, and people would be stomping around in the basin mashing the grapes with their feet.

You were encouraged to stomp along with the others, and were given free samples of wine at each stop. If you didn’t like that particular one, you just poured it out into the woods and trundled on to the next one you could find. The U.S. Navy sailors I was with just adored this outing – the mucking around was great fun and it was also a really cheap way to get drunk. I never realized at the time that I was participating in culinary history.

Q3: Well I don’t think many of us are going to crush grapes with our feet, so getting back to Montreal, how do you do it here?

Grapes come into town from now until mid-November from California, Ontario and Europe. You can buy them at the public markets or at Bacchus, the first store mentioned below. It is possible to make a fast young wine in as little as forty days, but waiting ninety days til Christmas would yield a much finer tasting wine.

If you want to skip the first process of grape crushing, then during the rest of the year you can buy the grape in concentrates, and go from there. All of the stores will offer you any guidance you need in order to come up with a fine wine. Cheers!

The reason for the huge space that the store Bacchus Le Seigneur du Vin takes up is revealed now, in September. At this time, crates full of grapes are ordered for customers, and all the machinery you could need to crush them in order to make your wine for the year can be rented here and done on the spot.

There are daily deliveries of grapes, about twenty-five varieties in all. You must order a minimum of six cases (approximately $26 a case) in order to use the crushing service, which costs $25 for 6-10 cases and $2.50 per case above that.

The rest of the year you can buy your fresh Village Vintner juice concentrates (about 24 reds or whites), bottles, labels, corks, rubber stoppers and even 54L containers.

Location: 1820 Dollard Ave, Lasalle
corner: at Newman Blvd..
Phone: 514- 366-8000
Hours:  now to about end of October: Monday to Friday 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 8 a.m. to 5  p.m.,
(rest of year) Tuesday to Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Q4: What about other shops that might be able to help us with this delicious project?

For under $100 to start with, at, you can ferment your own wine (for $2 – $3 a bottle) in about 4 weeks’ time. If you have no room at home, you can make and bottle your own wine at the premises of PurVin-Paul Bourget for $3 – $ 4 per bottle. Helpful advice is given by this 37-year-old business, along with the glass aging jars, hydrometers, bottles, gallon jugs, corks, and labels needed to make Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay. From Italy, California, France, Australia, Chile and Spain there are about 75 vineyard quality varieties of wine juices.

Location: 1265 O’brien Blvd, Ville St-Laurent
corner: at Rochon St.
Phone: 514-747-3533
Hours: Tues-Fri 9-6, Sat 9-5
www.purvincanada.com

Mosti Mondiale 2000 has been located in a busy wine-making community for the past 14 years and is well equipped. You can buy or rent equipment – press, crushers. Then you would need  new or re-cycled bottles, labels, barley, malt, hops and concentrates by Sterile or fresh juice. There are lots of beer possibilities: Irish, Australian, Mexican, Scottish, Dutch and ales too, with beer kits starting at $10.

Location: 5187 Jean-Talon est,  St-Leonard
corner: Viau
Phone: 514-728-6831
Hours:  Mon-Fri 9-6, Sat 9-5 (Sept-Nov Sun 9-5)