ArborShire carves out niche

Sometimes it’s easier to put your toe in the water than plunge into the deep end.
That’s the thinking behind the “personal winery” at ArborShire in northwestern Blackford County.
Anyone who has ever considered the possibility of making his or her own wine knows how daunting the hobby can appear and how big the investment could be.
There’s equipment to buy, lingo to learn and supplies to purchase. And if you make a single batch then abandon the hobby, there’s the guilt of having all that stuff stored in your garage or basement for the rest of your natural life.
Since 2012, Sharon Downhour has provided an alternative.
Located on the farmstead where Downhour and her husband have lived for the past 20 years, ArborShire provides individuals with a chance to try wine-making with minimal investment and an adviser at your side.
Here’s how it works, based upon our personal experience this fall.
ArborShire’s facility in a converted two-car garage has all the equipment and supplies housed in a sanitary, white-glove clean environment.
The would-be winemaker — or winemakers, since many couples have found it’s an enjoyable activity together — looks through the offerings of a company called WineExpert. That company provides kits for making about 30 bottles of your own wine.
What kind of wine? That depends upon your taste.
Many Hoosier wine drinkers prefer sweeter wines, the sort that Oliver Winery in the Bloomington area has been producing for years or like those of Wilson Winery, which is located in Randolph County near Modoc.
Our tastes run to dry wines, and that option was available as well.
Having decided upon what type of wine we wanted to make — a Merlot from grapes harvested in the Stag’s Leap district of California’s Napa Valley — the next step was to contact Downhour and set up a time to start the process.
ArborShire, which also produces a number of artisinal snack items that are sold at the Minnetrista Farmers Market, is open from noon to 7 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. The after 5 p.m. timeframe made it easier for us to fit it in after work.
Upon our arrival, Downhour first wanted to make sure we would be happy with the type of wine we’d selected. So she opened a bottle of the same Merlot that she herself had made, poured us each a sample and joined us under the arbor on her back deck to give it a taste.
Once we approved, she took us to the garage winery and explained the process and the steps involved.
It turns out, that by selecting the dry red wine we had chosen the most complicated wine possible. Sweeter wines are simpler, it seems.
With the help of Downhour’s son Nathan, we emptied the contents of a plastic box of harvested grape juice concentrate into a 10-gallon bucket. Then, with Downhour reviewing the written instructions that came with the kit, we added yeast to start the fermentation process, a material called Bentonite clay that attracts particles and impurities so they will settle out of the wine, and a couple of pounds of grape skins, stems and seeds that had been vacuum-packed as part of the kit. We also added — much to our surprise — sawdust, oak sawdust to be precise. That’s to help replicate the flavor that comes when wine is stored in oak casks.
Then we smooshed and stirred the mixture, known as “must,” before having Nathan place the 10-gallon bucket on the top level of three shelves. Each level was for a different stage in the fermentation process.
The specific gravity of the “must” was measured in order to determine what the alcohol content would be. Sugar can be added to increase the alcohol content, but we wanted to stick with the natural level.
And that was it for our first visit. It took roughly half an hour, or about 15 minutes less than the drive from Portland.
A week later, we returned as the wine was “racked,” transferred from the bucket to a glass “carboy,” a large jug. The skins and other materials we had added were left behind in the bucket, having settled out.
In our absence, Downhour had checked the specific gravity daily and had made sure the temperature of the winery was correct for the fermentation process. In her words, she “babysat” our wine.
The second visit saw us adding oak chips — again for flavor — and a material made from seashells that attracts the “fines,” those particulates in the wine that need to be removed.
A third visit was for “settling” the wine, ending the fermentation process. That involved using an electric drill attached to a thing that looked like a plastic pinwheel, stirring the wine for several minutes.
On a fourth visit, the wine was racked to a second carboy, leaving behind all the solid material that had settled out.
Most wines, particularly the sweet ones, require just three visits.
The next step is bottling, and as of today the jury is still out. We’ll be bottling the wine in early December, applying our own labels and getting the finished product ready for delivery by Christmas.
It won’t be ready to drink just then, and should be stored properly for another six months or so before sampling. It should be drinkable by the Fourth of July, but it will be even better by Christmas 2015.
Total investment: $200 for the wine kit (the most expensive ArborShire offers) and another $65 for Downhour’s advice, expertise and the use of the facility. Bottles are another expense, but you can bring your own to keep the cost down.
Will it be good wine? That’s yet to be determined.
But it was fun. And because we put our toe in the water instead of making the plunge, we don’t have a bunch of equipment to store in our garage.