Homemade Wine as a Way of Life in Europe
From Ancient Vineyards to Family Cellars
Part 3
Homemade wine survived the Migration Period, the Industrial Revolution, and the great movement of people from the countryside into the cities. It seemed that it would finally give way to bottles from commercial wineries and the neatly stocked shelves of supermarkets.
History, however, had other plans.
In the twentieth century, it was Prohibition that unexpectedly gave homemade winemaking a new lease on life. And later, people began making wine with their own hands once again—not out of necessity, but by choice.
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Prohibition: The Ban That Brought Homemade Wine Back
In January 1920, the United States embarked on a grand social experiment—one that would ultimately prove unsuccessful. The production and sale of alcoholic beverages were outlawed. At first glance, it seemed that homemade wine in America had reached its darkest hour. played an important role
But almost the opposite happened.
• Alcohol disappeared from legal commerce, but people’s desire to drink wine did not.
• This tradition remained especially strong among European immigrant families from established wine-growing regions. An Italian or a Portuguese immigrant might spend twenty years in America, work in a factory, speak fluent English, and raise children born in the United States—yet wine at the family table remained part of the culture they had brought from Europe. They made wine for much the same reason they grew tomatoes, cured sausages, or baked bread: that was how things had always been done at home. Their ancestors had lived that way for centuries.
• The United States covered vast distances and possessed an extensive railroad network. Grapes grown in California could be shipped across the continent to New York, Chicago, Boston, or Philadelphia.
In the nineteenth century, Europe’s railroads had helped wine leave the rural household. In the 1920s, America’s railroads unexpectedly helped bring it back
The scale of the phenomenon changed dramatically under Prohibition. Rather than banning alcohol completely, American law allowed citizens to produce a limited quantity of wine and fruit beverages at home for personal use. In most cases, the grapes came from California. For many immigrants from the Old World, California grapes were far closer to the European wine varieties they knew than native American grapes such as Concord, with its distinctive “foxy” aroma.
The result was a boom in California viticulture. Grape prices initially tripled, while the state’s vineyard acreage doubled within just eight years. Thick-skinned varieties capable of surviving long cross-country rail journeys became especially valuable. Among them, Alicante Bouschet became one of the most important varieties.
👉 Alicante Bouschet is a French wine grape developed in the nineteenth century. It is one of the few teinturier varieties, meaning that both its skin and flesh are red. As a result, it produces deeply colored wines and was long used to enhance the color of other wines.
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…New York. An Italian Neighborhood. 1925.
The little boy who had once asked his father, “Where is home?” had grown up. Now his own son stood beside him, while his father had become an old man.
Freshly delivered crates of California grapes stood in the courtyard. Three generations of an Italian-American family gathered around them.
The grandfather remembered the vineyard in Italy. The father was building a new life in America. The grandson had been born here. Prohibition unexpectedly brought three generations together around crates of California grapes and reminded them of one thing: homemade wine may lose its land, but it does not necessarily lose its memory
The grandfather picked up a cluster of grapes, crushed one berry between his fingers, and tasted the juice.
— Is it good? — his grandson asked.
— We’ll see.
— Did you buy grapes in crates back in Italy too?
The old man smiled.
— No.
—Why not?
— Because they grew right beside our house.
The boy thought for a moment.
— Did you make wine the same way?
The old man looked at his son. Then at his grandson.
— Almost.
— What was different?
The old man picked up another bunch of grapes.
— The grapes were our own.
He paused for a moment.
— Now they come to us from California.
His son lifted one of the crates and headed toward the cellar stairs.
— At least we have a good press now.
— The neighbor’s press, — the old man corrected him.
— But it’s in our cellar.
— Because he doesn’t have room for it.
Another man emerged from the cellar.
— Did you buy the sugar?
— We did.
— How much?
His son named the amount.
The man shook his head.
— Not enough.
— Last year you said it was too much.
— Last year’s grapes were different.
A voice called out from somewhere across the courtyard:
— Don’t listen to him! My grandfather made wine in Italy for forty years, and he never added that much sugar! None of you knows anything about winemaking.
The old man slowly turned to his son.
— His grandfather was from Sicily.
— So?
— They have more sunshine there. We came from Piedmont.
His son nodded. That explanation was perfectly sufficient.
A few minutes later, the crates began disappearing into the cellar one by one. Someone was already rinsing the carboys. Someone else was preparing the barrels. Another neighbor was checking the press.
The debate over the right way to make wine continued. It had almost certainly begun in Italy two generations earlier. Now it had simply moved to America—but no one had ever settled the argument.
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► Another Road to Homemade Wine
👉 During Prohibition, grapes were not the only way winemaking found its way into American homes. So-called wine bricks—compressed blocks of concentrated grape juice—were also sold. Their packaging sometimes included detailed warnings explaining exactly what customers should not do if they wanted to prevent the juice from fermenting and turning into wine. All the buyer had to do was read the instructions carefully—and then do precisely the opposite.
👉 Section 29 of the Volstead Act allowed households to produce up to 200 gallons of “non-intoxicating cider and fruit juices” each year for family use. The wording of the law was ambiguous and became a legal loophole that home winemakers used extensively. Two hundred U.S. gallons equal approximately 757 liters, or about 1,000 standard 750 ml bottles of juice—that is, nearly three bottles of “juice” every day for an entire year.
The law never mentioned wine directly. But there was one small problem separating grape juice from wine. Fermentation. A legislator could write the word juice into the law. Yeast, however, could not read it.
By outlawing the purchase of wine, the government unintentionally encouraged thousands of Americans to learn how to make it themselves
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🍇 After Prohibition
The repeal of Prohibition in 1933 did not mean that the wine industry recovered overnight. Many wineries needed years to resume production, while others never reopened at all. For some time, homemade wine therefore remained a familiar part of everyday life for many families. The only difference was that people could now make their own wine legally.
Gradually, however, specialty wine shops began to appear. Wineries reopened and expanded. Once again, wine was something people could simply buy.
Yet homemade winemaking did not disappear.
During thirteen years of Prohibition, it had evolved from a forced alternative into a habit, a family tradition, and a small expression of personal independence.
But a few more decades would pass before the next great change arrived.
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🛒 The Twentieth Century: Why Make Wine If You Can Buy It?
Gradually, the world surrounding homemade wine began to change. It was no longer a necessity. Increasingly, wine became an ordinary commercial product rather than something families made themselves or bought from a local producer they knew personally.
Industrial production expanded, making wine more affordable than ever. Transportation and storage improved. Large stores and supermarkets appeared. Automobiles allowed people to buy wine far from where it had been produced and bring it home with little effort.
Life itself was changing. People moved from rural areas to cities and suburbs. Family vineyards and orchards were left behind. In a city apartment, it was difficult to find space for a wine press, barrels, or carboys, while the cellar—if there was one at all—was increasingly used for other purposes.
At the same time, commercially produced wine became more consistent and predictable. Consumers knew far better what to expect when they opened a bottle. Homemade wine offered no such certainty. It might turn out excellent, disappointing, or fail altogether. Taste and quality were becoming standardized.
For the first time in thousands of years, something remarkable had happened. Buying wine had become easier, more reliable, and often less expensive than making it yourself.
The change, of course, was gradual. But with each passing decade, the world needed homemade winemaking a little less.
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► But If Homemade Winemaking Lost Its Economic Purpose, Why Didn’t It Disappear?
There are several reasons.
The first—and the oldest—is simply because there are grapes. A person tends the vines, and autumn brings a harvest. The grapes can be eaten, shared with friends, thrown away, or turned into wine. Here, homemade winemaking does not begin with the desire to have a few bottles of your own wine. It begins with the need to do something with the harvest. It is hard to waste both nature’s gift and the fruits of your own labor.
The second is because that’s how it was done before me. Whether in an Italian family, a Georgian village, a French vineyard, the Balkans, Moldova, or the Caucasus, the story is often the same. A person may fully understand that better wine can be bought at the store. But that’s how their father made it. And their grandfather before him. The old press still stands in the cellar. At that point, what is being produced is no longer just wine—it is the continuation of a family across generations.
The third is simple curiosity: Can I do it? Will it work? Those are the questions today’s urban home winemaker asks. They buy equipment, read about yeast, measure sugar levels, acidity, and fermentation temperatures. A good bottle of wine may well cost less than all the equipment they’ve already purchased. But anyone can buy a bottle. The experience, the mistakes, and the satisfaction of saying, “I made this myself,” come only with the process. Store-bought wine quenches your thirst. Homemade wine satisfies your curiosity as well. In a sense, the home winemaker is testing not just the wine but themselves.
The fourth is because I can make it my own way. More or less sugar. A different grape variety. Different yeast strains. Longer aging. The result may be excellent—or it may not. But every decision belongs to the winemaker. This is where that small measure of independence we mentioned earlier begins to emerge.
The fifth is because homemade winemaking naturally creates a community. Harvest time, working the press, waiting for fermentation, the first tasting, bottles for relatives and neighbors with amusing homemade labels—wine becomes an excuse to gather, exchange ideas, enjoy one another’s company, and share a drink. Sometimes the process of making the wine brings people together even more than drinking it.
The sixth—and perhaps the most amusing—is simply because every winemaker is convinced that their wine will be better than anything they can buy. Sometimes they’re right. Sometimes it is merely the confidence of an enthusiastic experimenter. Either way, the difference hardly matters.
A store sells the finished product of someone else’s work.
It cannot sell the experience of creating it yourself.
Today, buying a bottle is easier than making one. But that is precisely why some people choose the longer path
Along with homemade wine, people gain something that can never be found inside a commercially produced bottle: their own labor, their harvest, their memories, their curiosity, the freedom to make their own decisions, the companionship of others, and the satisfaction of having taken part in the process.
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…Why?
Several people had gathered in a small garage behind the house.
Homemade wine brings people together not only around the bottle, but also around the very process of creating it
The owner’s car usually occupied the space, but today it had been left outside. Shelves lined the walls, stacked with tools, gardening gloves, empty bottles, and cardboard boxes. A small wine press stood in one corner, with several fermentation vessels beside it.
On an old wooden table, the host set out the wine glasses.
— So, — he said, —Shall we try this year’s vintage?
He uncorked the first bottle and poured the wine. For a few seconds, no one spoke.
— Not bad, — one of the guests finally said.
— What do you mean, “not bad”?
— It means I’m willing to try the second bottle too.
Everyone laughed.
Another guest looked into his glass again.
—You know, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.
— Go ahead.
— Why do you even bother doing all this?
The host shrugged.
— What do you mean?
— I mean exactly what I said. You buy grapes. Equipment. Yeast. Bottles. You spend your time on it. You monitor the temperature. Then you wait for months.
He pointed at the bottle.
— And yet, ten minutes from here there’s a store with hundreds of bottles just like this.
— Did you come here to drink my wine or advertise the store?
— I’m just trying to understand.
One of the guests, who also made wine at home, joined the conversation.
— Don’t bother.
— Why not?
— Because you buy a finished bottle.
He nodded toward the host.
— He starts with grapes.
The host smiled.
— Sometimes even earlier than that.
— Earlier? But you buy your grapes.
— I do now. But I started with vines growing in my own backyard.
He glanced toward the house.
—Twenty-three vines. The previous owner planted them. My first year here, I had no idea what to do with them. There were far too many grapes to eat, and I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away.
— So you decided to make wine?
— I decided to give it a try.
— And did it work?
The host took a sip.
— No.
Everyone burst out laughing again.
— And the following year?
— Not much better.
— So why did you keep going?
The host laughed this time.
— Because I wanted to figure out why it wasn’t working.
One of the home winemakers raised his glass.
— Exactly. That’s where it all begins.
— With bad wine?
— With the desire to understand—and to make the next batch better.
The host uncorked a second bottle.
— Then I started reading. Bought proper wine yeast. Learned how to measure sugar and acidity. Learned to control the fermentation temperature. Sometimes I’d even get up in the middle of the night and come out to the garage.
— And how much did all that cost you?
— Let’s not spoil the evening.
— I thought so.
— If you add up the equipment, the supplies, the grapes, and all the time I’ve spent, I could have bought some very good wine for a lot less.
— Which brings us back to my original question. Why?
The host thought for a moment.
— Because the wine in the store was made without me.
Silence settled over the garage.
One of the guests looked down at his glass.
— That’s beautifully said.
— I’ve had several years to prepare for that question.
— And seriously?
— I am serious.
He picked up the bottle.
— I chose the grapes myself. I decided which yeast to use. I watched the fermentation. I made mistakes. Changed things. Made more mistakes. Read, learned, and waited.
— So now you think your wine is better than the wine from the store?
The host looked around at his friends.
— Of course.
— And what if we don’t agree?
— That’s exactly why I’ll be making the next batch—not you.
Someone refilled the glasses.
— My father made wine too, — one of the guests said unexpectedly. — Every autumn.
—Was it any good?
— It was terrible.
—But you drank it?
— Of course.
— Why?
The guest paused.
— Because it was my father’s wine.
The conversation faded for a while.
Beyond the open garage door, dusk was settling in. Open bottles stood on the table. The debate about yeast gradually gave way to a discussion of grape varieties, then aging, then family traditions, and finally to who would help the host process next year’s harvest.
The first guest looked at his glass once more.
— I think I’m beginning to understand.
— Understand what?
— Why you all do this.
— And why is that?
He looked around the garage, at the bottles, and at the people gathered around the table.
— It seems the wine is only part of the result.
People still grow grapes, buy presses, watch over fermentation, and wait for months for something they could obtain in just a few minutes by walking into the nearest store.
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►🌱 The Return of Homemade Wine: A Hobby, a Memory, a Family Story, a Conscious Choice
Yet the tradition has never disappeared completely. It has simply returned in a different form. Today, people make wine to preserve family memories, maintain a connection with the land, enjoy the process itself, or as an alternative to anonymous mass-produced products. And sometimes they do it simply because they can afford not to choose the easiest path.
Once, homemade wine was a necessity.
Today, it has become a voluntary complication of life.
And that is precisely what gives it personal meaning.
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🏡 Back to the Tuscan Cellar
Let us return to where our story began—to a small house in modern-day Tuscany. Once again, its owner opens the cellar door and walks down into its cool, damp air.
He could have opened a bottle from the store. Instead, he opens the cellar door once again
Now we know a little more about him. He does not have to make his own wine. A small shop stands only a few hundred yards away. A supermarket is just a little farther down the main road. Fifteen minutes away, there is an enoteca. Beyond that, on a nearby hillside, is a well-known winery where he could buy excellent wine. It would probably be more consistent. Quite likely less expensive. And it would certainly require far less work.
Yet he still walks down into his cellar. Not because, without that barrel, his family would have nothing to put on the table.
But because without it, something important would disappear from his life
Once, homemade wine was simply the norm. People grew grapes, harvested them, and turned them into wine for much the same reason they grew vegetables, baked bread, or kept livestock.
Then the world changed. People no longer needed to produce most of what they consumed. They learned to buy it instead. It was faster. More convenient. More reliable.
But as ready-made goods became increasingly available, people gradually lost something else as well—the personal experience of creating them.
Today, some enthusiasts are trying to reclaim that experience. Not because it is cheaper. Not because they would otherwise have nothing to drink.
But because something made with your own hands tells you—and everyone around you—far more about who you are than something purchased off a store shelf ever can.
The owner walks over to the barrel. He pours a little wine into his glass. He studies its color. Takes a sip. For a moment, he is lost in thought. Then he smiles.
— Perhaps the wine turned out well this year.
Or perhaps he is already thinking about next year’s harvest.
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🌱 Returning to the Process
The home winemaker in our garage is not unique. Over the past few decades, more and more people have rediscovered an interest in making things with their own hands. They bake bread, even though an industrial bakery is just around the corner. They grow vegetables, although store-bought produce is often cheaper. They brew beer, make cheese, smoke meat, knit, create pottery, and restore classic cars.
And they make wine.
This renewed interest exists alongside a growing appreciation for local food, the Slow Food movement, natural wines, small artisanal producers, and efforts to preserve regional culinary traditions.
These are all different movements, and it would be a mistake to treat them as one and the same. Yet many of them are driven by similar questions:
• Where did this product come from?
• Who made it?
• What was it made from?
• How was it made?
• And what happened to it before it reached the table?
For much of the twentieth century, humanity worked to free itself from the need to make everything by hand—and succeeded remarkably well.
But once that necessity disappeared, some people unexpectedly found themselves wanting to reclaim the process itself. Not all of it. Not all the time. And not because they reject the conveniences of modern life.
Sometimes, the result alone is not enough. Sometimes, people simply want to be part of the process
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