I am inspired by the Julie/Julia Project!

This morning I watched the movie "Julie and Julia"! It was a delight to watch, not to mention how inspiring it was. I can identify with Julie from an A.D.D. perspective and how finishing something is important. I liked the part where she says that's the reason why she's so bad at keeping house.

I give Julie tons of credit for taking on her challenge and I'm inspired, not to copy or re-create the Julie/Julia Project, but to for once in my life, get something done. The feeling of actually finishing something you started is as rewarding to me as, well, winning a race.

It's exhausting being me. I, like Julie and Julia, have married a Saint. Without him, I would be more lost than I am in this world. We left our big fat lives in New York and moved to the beach in Wilmington, NC to open a boutique winery. Look us up at www.nbwinery.com. We began this project 2.5 years ago and we aggressively strive to keep 60 varieties of wine, made by us, on premise, on the shelves. Don't get me wrong....I asked for this....but being open 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, is quite a lot to manage, let alone a house and two kids. OK, boo hoo, I'm tired and for once would like to go home to a clean and tidy house.....therefore, I am going to hire a house keeper! Ingenious, no? NO! I need to be in control of everything and hiring a housekeeper is out of the question.

So....I will be inspired by the woman who took on the courageous challenge of cooking French, and just do something for once! I am going to leave work early today and clean my house until it is all done! Then I am going to schedule time to do something every day to maintain it! There....so it is written, so it will be done!

Thank you Julia!

Wine Making....Are You Making Wine Yet?

Welcome to this wine making blog. If you are making wine now, you know that you can produce a high quality product from your home at a fraction of the cost of retail wines. If you are not making wine now, I have only one question..... Wine Not?

Wine making dates back to the days of the cave men who fermented berries in wooden bowls. Obviously we've come a long way from those days and there are new modern ways of making wine. For those of you who don't have access to vine grown grapes, there are alternatives. There are several products on the market today that produce high quality wines. They are referred to as wine kits or wine juice kits. Most of these wine kits produce 23 liters or 6 gallons of wine in about 28 - 42 days, depending on the kit.

The wine kits come in the form of concentrates, semi-concentrates, or full-strength must. Must is the term used for grape juice that is not yet fermented. With concentrated and semi-concentrated juice, you will need to add a certain amount of water to reconstitute the juice, but they produce really nice wines. Full-strength must does not require the addition of water, therefore, producing a superior quality wine.

In addition to the wine juice kit, equipment is required to produce the wine. There are equipment kits ranging from a basic "bare bones" fermenting kit to "complete" equipment kits with all of the bells and whistles that go with it. The wine making hobby is NOT expensive. The average cost per bottle is about $3.