Today, we continued our coverage of Felice Gentile in his winemaking process. The grapes we had bought on the 15th were now ready to be processed. He began by removing the grapes from the stems. He claims that if you grind the stems down and allow them to ferment with the grapes, then the wine will be bitter. It takes a lot of time to separate 15 boxes of grapes from their stems! But thanks to his dear life long partner and wife Madeline they spent an entire day doing just that. After that step comes the easy process. The grapes are put into a grinder that is operated by a manual handle. Felice ground the grapes into a large barrel made of wood from a Cherry tree. He mentioned that he doesn’t like the taste of the wine when using a barrel made from the standard Oak. After that, you wait! The fermenting process will take the next couple of days, and as the grape pulp uses yeast from the air to ferment, it will heat up and “boil”. Felice has to watch it very closely to make sure it doesn’t bubble over.

We captured Felice’s entire process up to the point where you have to let it ferment for two days. We will return when Felice removes the mixture from the barrel puts it into large glass jugs.

After making the wine, we headed upstairs to film Felice’s interview. It was lively, energetic, passionate and emotional interview. It ended with Felice serenading us with one of his favorite Italian songs for the camera. After the interview, we were treated to a wonderful Italian lunch by Felice’ s wife, Madeline, complete with some of Felice’s homemade wine from last year’s batch.

Felice making wine...very good wine I might add	Grapes fermenting
Felice serenading us with Italian Opera	Felice with a trunk full of grapes for wine making
A proud Felice in his basement the day before wine making