“It’s hard to leave this place
without getting purple grape stains on either your shoes, shirt, or pants”,
said the owner Frank, of The Wine Makers Cellar. The Wine Makers Cellar is
located in a small town, Hawthorne, New Jersey. Right when I walk in the hidden
building on a busy main road, I can already smell the aroma of sweet grapes being
crushed into juice. From the outside, the building does not look like much. But
as soon as you enter the warehouse, you get a glimpse of being in Italy by the
atmosphere it provides.
Once
you enter the door, a classic scene of a backyard patio on an Italian hillside
plays into my head. Italian music is playing, there’s grey stone flooring, five
table and chair sets with an orange tile design, and an old antique red Vespa
sits in the corner of the conversing room used for winetasting. On the walls there’s cute signs hanging up,
one says “Group Therapy: Winetasting”, another is a picture of women dressed in
old fashion clothing stomping grapes. Along the walls there’s also medals that the wine
making company has won at competitions. Some are gold medals, some are silver
but they all have purple ribbon on them. Various of these medals are from a
specific competition named “Corrado’s Winemaking Competition”.
I look to my left in the
winetasting room and see a bar with black shimmering granite, which has long
blue bar lights hanging from the ceiling over it. Along the walls are stranded
lights that are in the shape of grapes, shades green and purple. There are many
different types of wine bottles on display on the bar and on ledges. These wine
bottles are different shapes and sizes and all have different labels. An Italian woman stands behind the bar handing
various types of wines to customers to taste test.
Adria
is around the height of 5’3, has voluminous brown hair, and is very friendly
towards everyone. “This is our newest blend, Pinot Grigo, it’s a white wine”
said Adria to customers. The customers seem to enjoy the wines that Adria is handing
out over the counter. Most of the customers in the winetasting section are
dressed in formal attire, such as dresses and collared shirts. This is much
different attire compared to the other group of the people in the room over.
I walk down a hallway that leads to
a much larger room with high ceilings and bright lights making everything in
the room illuminate. The floor looks like it was originally white and now has
purple and red stains all over. Huge stacks of big, round barrels line the
walls almost to the ceiling. These barrels have labels, which names whose wine
it is, and what type of mix it is. The wine barrels are in rows and stacked on
one another, held up by big maroon medal racks. There’s no specific size to
these barrels, some are bigger than others and some are wider than others, too.
In the middle of the room there is a lot of commotion along with laughter.
Wooden
crates that have the words “Prima Qualita” are filled with juicy dark purple
grapes that are stacked on top of each other all around the room. A crowd of
people were wearing casual clothing, and just like Frank had told me, they were
covered in grape juice. The group was crowded around a machine that looked like
a giant cheese grater with many holes and a sharp spiral blade in the middle,
this machine is called a destemmer.
As the group were destemming the
grapes and getting ready to press them, I had pulled Frank aside along with his
co-owner Mike to discuss a little bit of the wine making process. Frank is a
very short, dark black haired man in his early 50’s, along with Mike who was
also in his early 50’s who was tall, and also had dark black hair. These two
men looked like your classic Italian men with a bit of a New York dialect.
Frank had answered, “My grandfather and uncles used to make
wine when I was younger in our drive way. As I had gotten older, it was
something I wanted to keep going in the family.”
“Frank and I have known each other for years, I used to help
make wine with frank when we used to make it at his house in his drive way”
Mike added.
“It seems as if you guys receive many different types of
grapes. What kind specifically do you receive?” I asked.
“We receive grapes from all over the world. Right now we’re
receiving some from California, Washington State, New York State and Italy, of
course” Frank had said, while pointing to the crates filled with grapes.
Mike also added the grapes they get depend on what season it
is.
A customer
shouted out to the men, “I think we’re done with destemming!” That meant they were ready to move on to crushing
the grapes. A machine that looks similar is used for crushing the grapes. Some women
thought it would be funny to put some grapes into a big bucket and stomp them
like in Italy. Crushing the grapes usually takes about 45 minutes.
After the
scene clears out, I got to sit down with Frank, Adria, and Mike. They explain
to me the wine making process. There’s many specifics to the wine making process.
First comes crushing the wine, and this usually takes place in the fall. Next comes
pressing, then racking, and bottling. The whole process takes around 8 months. I
asked questions such as how does labeling your wine bottles work after I had
noticed a bottle on display with grapes and toes, named “Adria’s Toes”.
“It’s a
funny story actually” Adria begins to explain. “We were crushing grapes, and it
was before we had ever let anyone try to crush grapes with their toes. We
thought it would be funny for me to actually get into a big bucket and crush
grapes with my toes. Ever since then, we bring up to our lady customers if they’d
like to crush the grapes with their toes.”
By the time
I was leaving, the smell had become non-existent to me because I was in there
for such a long time. I thought I was
safe, my clothes had no stains anywhere! I double looked at my outfit and saw
purple on my shoes. Frank was right; you couldn’t leave the Wine Makers Cellar
without getting purple grape stains on your shoes, shirt, or pants. 
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