Although she didn't get the bottom of her feet stained purple the same way that Lucy and Ethel did on the famous "I Love Lucy" winemaking-in-Italy episode, Lenore Koors wasn't really disappointed.

"I didn't know what to expect," she said. "You remember the Lucy and Ethel episode with the grapes and stomping them? Well, we didn't get to stomp with our feet."

Koors was among the first customers to sign up at the Tin Lizzie Wineworks, a winemaking school that recently opened in Clarksville. A member of the professional women's group, Girls Who Swirl, Koors joined several of her compatriots on Sept. 30 to try their hand at making their own wine.

"It was fun; I'm learning a lot. I like wine, I drink wine...I take a lot for granted. I know that it comes from grapes and now I'm learning the process," she said.

Tin Lizzie is the brainchild of David Zuchero, a full-time microbiologist and part-time winemaker, who decided to turn his passionate hobby into a business. A native of the Philadelphia area, he recalls helping his father make wine and beer at home as a child. In continuing his own training and education, Zuchero also completed a certificate program in winemaking from the University of California-Davis.

"I guess I learned it at my daddy's knee. I come from an Italian-American family and they all make wine, type of thing. I've been working with some type of fermentation, wine or beer, for a long time. I've been making wine on my own for 30 years," he said.

During that time, Zuchero found that he really enjoyed inviting friends and acquaintances over to his home to help with the process.

"There's always a party atmosphere with making wine," he noted. "There's usually food, and we drink wine and it's always a good time. I like the combination of the art and science of it, and sharing the end product is fun."

Zuchero and his wife, Denise, began hosting an annual winemaking party, which they refer to as the Festival of Fermentation, at their Highland home about 15 years ago. Often included in the festivities was a backyard set-up which allowed the neighborhood children to crush grapes with their bare feet.

"We called it 'Funky Feet' wine," Zuchero added with a grin. "If there's an FF on any of our labels, you know that little kids have stomped on them (grapes)."

Tin Lizzie Wineworks is located on the grounds of Wayback Farm, a working farm owned by Randy Roby. The pastoral setting includes a driveway lined with tall stalks of corn and horses grazing in pastures in the background. Zuchero named the winemaking school after Roby's beautifully restored 1915 Model T Ford, which was one of the first things he saw when driving up to the site.

Zuchero converted a stand-alone garage on the property into a winemaking facility, outfitting it with all the gadgets and equipment necessary to produce wine. The building includes a climate- and humidity-controlled room used for aging wine in oak barrels.

Zuchero notes that his business is not a winery and he is therefore not tied down to making wine from only one particular type of grape.

"We had a booth at Wine in the Woods (in Columbia) this year and people would ask me: 'What kind of wine do you make?' And I'd say: 'What kind of wine do you like?' " he said.

In picking a wine to make, Girls Who Swirl founder Jody Aud said that what her group finally decided they wanted to produce was a zinfandel. Although it may not have been everyone's favorite, the women were particularly interested in learning all the different steps of the winemaking process, beginning with the selection of the grapes themselves.

"If we had done one of the other wines, it may have cut out one of the steps and we wanted to do all of the steps. Everyone unanimously said that they wanted to do all of the steps," Aud explained.

Aud added that she thought winemaking was a natural for her group. "It's all about making friends and having fun," she said. "Men play golf and women drink wine."

The first class on making zinfandel for the Girls Who Swirl took place three weeks ago. If all goes according to plan, the participants will each take home a case of the wine in about one year's time. Designing a unique label is still on the group's agenda.

Aud gave high marks to Zuchero and his coworkers for guiding her group of first-time winemakers through the process. "I can't say enough about them. They're great and they're all very helpful, so if we kind of decide that we want to sit around and drink wine, they took over!" said Aud.

For more information on Tin Lizzie Wineworks, visit www.tinlizziewineworks.com or call 301-318-9954.

---

user comments (0)