(Making Good Wine Requires Time and a Bit of Poetry)

As a reporter for the Mayefield Messenger, Thomas Carroll captured the soul of his hometown by writing about “real people,” not just those considered newsworthy.  His feature stories were well regarded and occasionally came to the attention of the metropolitan daily, the Beacon Light, which published Thomas’ stories under the heading “Dispatch from Mayefield.”  The following is one of these Dispatches, published in 1975.

 Making Good Wine Requires Time and a Bit of Poetry

 By Thomas Carroll

 Mayefield Messenger

Maybe there’s a little bit of poet in all of us.

There’s more than a little bit in Clyde Shaffer.  You walk with him up the hills, through the woods, and along the streams of his Bund Road home to inspect his vineyard.  You know that just over the ridge are hundreds of homes crowded in the various West Mayefield communities, but for a moment you can ignore that, and drift back to another time.

Imagine yourself strolling with Robert Frost through the woods of New Hampshire, going to mend fences or pick apples.

“See this Blue Star,” he says, carefully lifting a bunch of young grapes on the vine.  “Isn’t it pretty?  You should see it when it reaches a deep purple color in the fall.  It’s really a thing of beauty.”

One is reminded of Wordsworth admiring the beauty of “a crowd, a host of golden daffodils…”

But would Wordsworth consider picking the daffodils to make wine?  Clyde Shaffer would.  There are few things that grow, he says, that you can’t make wine from.

Clyde Shaffer, Ph.D. is less a poet than a scientist, a man who has spent his life studying nature and its practical effect on our lives.  He is a professor at the University and was for many years head of the University’s Department of Poultry Sciences.

For nearly ten years, Dr. Shaffer has been making his own wine.  It started with a simple winemaking kit he received as a Christmas present, but the hobby has grown into a full scale process that involves growing his own grapes and building a cellar for fermentation and wine storage.

Legally the head of a household can manufacture up to two hundred gallons of wine each year for personal use, Dr. Shaffer explains.  Personal use means for his family.  “Legally, I can’t even offer you any in my own home,” he says with a smile.

Two hundred gallons are a little much for the Shaffers to consume in a year, so his annual production is usually limited to about 25 gallons.  Grape wine is his favorite, but he also makes use of the elderberries that grow wild near his home to make wine for his wife, Nancy, and on occasion he has used various fruits, herbs and flowers.

His vineyard is located on a hill in the middle of his 35-acre property.  He is currently cultivating 15 varieties of grapes, but is narrowing his crop down to those that do the best in the area.  The vines are ordered from the New York State Fruit Testing Association, but not all vines that do well in New York thrive here.

“We usually have a few warm days during the winter here,” Dr. Shaffer says, “and the grapes break dormancy.  If they break too early, the crop is ruined.”

Weather isn’t the only factor that threatens the grapes.  Birds and diseases, such as dry rot, can also be deadly, but constant spraying and covering the vines with nets seem to offer adequate protection.  The maturation process for the vines is about four years.

While many gardens have dried up in recent weeks because of the drought and water crisis, Dr. Shaffer’s vineyard and vegetable garden are doing fine, thanks to an irrigation system he rigged, utilizing a pump that moves the water from a stream on his property up the hill in hoses to the thirsty grapes.

If they survive the weather uncertainties of the winter and summer, the grapes are ready to be harvested in the fall when they have reached their maximum sugar content.  This can be determined by a scientific process, using a saccharometer, but in this case the scientist depends on his senses.  “I usually just pick one and eat it to see how it tastes.”

The remaining winemaking procedure is simple, yet it takes a long time before you are able to pop the cork and savor the finished product.  After the grapes are crushed, sugar and yeast are added for the fermentation.

“Most of the winemaking is done the first week,” Dr. Shaffer explains.  After a week, when the yeast has turned the sugar to alcohol, the juice is pressed out and put in a crock for the anaerobic fermentation (without oxygen).  It sits for three to four months, after which it is “racked over,” and the dead yeast is siphoned out at six month intervals.

The waiting continues.  Dr. Shaffer says it should be aged for two years. A good wine is the product of “good grapes and patience,” he says, although the waiting becomes very difficult, especially for the novice winemaker, who is anxious to test his first batch.

After a few years, the waiting is easier since products of past efforts are bottled and ready to be consumed.  Dr. Shaffer has a good stock in his wine cellar, stored not in normal wine containers, but in soft drink bottles, jars, or anything else that is handy.

“I don’t have many wine bottles since I don’t buy it at the store.  Here are a few, but they’re communion wine bottles from St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church.  I’m a Methodist, but the folks at St. Andrews are nice enough to save them for me.”

Fancy bottles are mere trappings.  It’s what on the inside that counts, and Dr. Shaffer is proud of the wine he has produced over the years.

“The very first wine I made was pretty good, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have continued,” he says.  “I’ve learned a lot since, and I keep improving.

“I’m certainly no connoisseur, but I know what I like.  I have to admit that with commercial wines, I really don’t know one from the other.

“Frankly, I like my own wine better.  Of course, I’m a little bit prejudiced.”

But he’s never complacent or satisfied.  The scientist in him is always experimenting.  Looking over his vegetable garden and fruit trees, he searches for new wine flavors.  He ponders the tomatoes.

“There’s something I’ve never tried.  I’ve heard of people making tomato wine.  I can’t imagine what it would taste like, but maybe I’ll give it a try one day.”

The poet’s sensuousness takes over on a hot summer day.  He treks back down the hill and into the woods.  Covered by a hilly mound of dirt is the wine cellar.  He pulls open the heavy door and steps into the darkened coolness.  He takes a soda pop bottle off the shelf and pours a small glass of his favorite “Blue Star” wine.

What better way to take a break from your labors?

(Robert J. Marton)