We're in the middle of making homemade cherry wine. If you've stumbled upon this page, you're probably going to want to go back and start at the beginning (Page One). Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page here and hit the little button that says "Back". That'll take you right back to where it all began. If you are here after already having visited our first wine making page, GREAT! How is your wine coming along? Write to us and tell us about your adventures, and impart to us your stories about your very own upside-down plastic boys. We're picking up where we left off, which is after the first racking:

Here are the two six gallon carboys as they look on Wednesday, July 7th. The black tea mixture was added on Monday when we did the first racking. Then the air-lock stoppers were placed back on the carboys to let the fermentation process continue. They're bubbling away... (To where did our darn upside-down plastic boy run off this time?)	We bought several cases of bottles into which we will be putting the cherry wine.
Here is the sealing wax we will use to seal the bottles one they have been corked.	The corks are being soaked in the bowl, weighted down by the dinner plates. Soaking the corks before bottling the wine helps to ensure a good seal.
After several rackings (once a month), the wine was ready for bottling.  We ended up with 12.5% alcohol by volume, and excellent taste.  We were incredibly pleased with the results. Here is a carboy of cherry wine, awaiting the final racking into the bottles.	Cases of empty bottles, awaiting the cherry wine.
We purchased a corker. Michael mounted it on a piece of plywood.	Vesper helped siphon the cherry wine into the bottles, although she won't be old enough to drink the bottle that we are saving for her until November of the year 2017.
Vesper also helped with the corking of the bottles.	Here, Vesper is readying a cork for the next bottle.
Each carboy filled a little over two cases of bottles. Here is Vesper with upside-down plastic boy and the wine from "Bucket #2", as it had been affectinately dubbed throughout the fermentation process.	"Bucket #2" has been bottled. Now on to "Bucket #1".
Here are the cases and wine-making supplies, after the bottles have been filled. We had each marked for labeling.	Vesper designed the labels for our "Snazzy Bucket Bongo Juice". Each label designated the "Bucket" from which it came, with either a #1 or #2 on the label. We made matching gift tags to complete the visual appeal.
Line-up of some of the bottles. Note the designation of Bucket 1 or Bucket 2.	Young Vesper even designed the scene so that the bottle of wine on the label is one of our bottles, complete with her label and the continuing "diminishing effect" of another duplicate scene with the same label.
Snazzy Bucket Bongo Juice - 2004
Interestingly enough, wine from one "bucket" tasted different than wine from the other "bucket". Michael preferred the taste of wine from Bucket #2, while I liked the flavor of the wine from Bucket #1 (previously called "Jake Wine" because it was the only one with cherries from the Fischer Family farm). For Christmas dinner, my mother set out twenty small wine goblets for each of the ten guests. In one glass, cherry wine from Bucket #1 was poured. In the other glass, wine from Bucket #2 was added. Ten world renowned wine critics (Okay, so they were really just members of our family) sampled both of the wines. This wine tasting session resulted in a tie. Five of the tasters found Bucket #1 to be the best, while the other half sang the praises of Bucket #2. All of the wine turned out surprisingly good. We were very pleased with our effort and final results. Stay tuned: 2005 will produce a batch of blackberry wine (We hope).