Refine Your Own Wine

By Jerry James Stone

Photo by Sabine Marcelis

While the art of making fine wine is usually left in the hands of seasoned winemakers in places like Napa or Bordeaux, it really doesn’t have to be. Anyone who has seen the movie Bottle Shock knows that you never really know where the next great wine will hail from.

Thanks to Netherlands-based designer Sabine Marcelis, the next great winemaker could very well be you!

Marcelis got the inspiration for her do-it-yourself winemaking kit while in New Zealand, where “it is not so uncommon to brew your own wine at home,” she writes. “While making a batch of apple wine and grape wine, I carefully observed and recorded all the steps needed to get it from fruit to bottle. I quickly discovered some key problems with the current techniques which make the process both messy and unappealing.”

This all-in-one kit, called House Wine, was used for her graduation design project, and is as beautiful as it is easy to use. All of the equipment needed for nurturing the fermentation process, siphoning the wine, and bottling and corking is stored within the base of the unit. And the design is smart enough that it makes items such as funnels, bottle cleaners, and stirrers extraneous. Less equipment also means fewer things to sterilize and therefore less work.

She writes, “The [home brewing] process is often hidden away from view in garages and basements. This is a real shame, as wine is a living, breathing entity, which deserves an audience to witness it maturing.”

House Wine celebrates the process of winemaking by bringing it into our living space. Best of all, House Wine potentially enables experimentation, creating a whole new world of blends. I’ll drink to that.

Above is an excerpt from MAKE Volume 30.

MAKE Volume 30:

Until recently, home automation was gimmicky, finicky, and user-hostile. But today, thanks to a new crop of devices and technology standards, home automation is useful, fun, and maker-friendly. In the special section of MAKE Volume 30, we’ll show you: how to flip any switch in your home with a smartphone, home automation without programming, controlling your HVAC with an Arduino, a webcam security system, and a wall-mounted Notification Alert Generator (NAG) that plays timely reminders as you walk by. Plus, you’ll build a Yakitori Grill, a robust R/C flying-wing airplane, sturdy furnishings from PVC, and more!

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