An older friend of mine recounted a story from his youth that I thought
I'd share with you.

It seems that his parents had to leave for a full month while he was in
high school. They didn't feel comfortable leaving him alone, and they
couldn't pull him out of school for a month, so they suggested that he
invite a friend to stay with him. So he did, and while his parents were
gone, he and his friend found a recipe for Dandelion wine, which takes
us back on topic for this forum.

They spent quite a bit of time carefully picking Dandelions from the
yard and proceeded to get the gallon batch of wine started in the
basement. Being teenagers, they quickly forgot about their winemaking
project and got distracted with other things. My friend said that the
only time he thought about the wine was when his mom got back and asked
"What happened to all of my sugar?!?!"

About three years later he was away from home and going to college when
his dad called and asked, "What did you make that wine from?" to which
he responded "uhmm... Dandelions...". His dad then said, "That was
REALLY GOOD!"

The moral of the story... I'm sure that many of you are mother hens to
your wines as am I. We measure specific gravity, acid, and pH. We check
them periodically to make sure the airlock is tight and the
fermentation hasn't stopped prematurely. We look for signs of infection
of anything else amiss. And finally, we make sure to rack them or stir
the lees on a set schedule so that the lees don't autolyze and add
off-flavors to the beverage.

This fellow and his friend apparently made a remarkable beverage by
throwing together the right ingredients and completely ignoring it.
They didn't even have an airlock. He thinks they just had a cap loosely
screwed onto the top. I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't be as
careful as we are or that we should completely ignore are wines and
meads as they progress, but perhaps a lot of what we do is actually
overkill and doesn't really improve the beverage or increase our
chances of success.

Regards,

Greg G.