Honolulu Weekly

Barry Solywoda makes his Luna Rossa (Amarone) by tossing a few oak chips down a metal funnel into a clear glass carboy, which looks like an oversized cider jug. Laura Yach of Diamond Head Winery helps Solywoda as he adds some bentonite clay. He unplugs a pillow-sized plastic bag full of eggplant-colored Luna Rossa grape juice, which slugs down into the carboy. Then he adds a package of yeast and seals the carboy. In eight weeks, Solywoda will come back to bottle his 2005 late-summer vintage.

‘It’s great for conversation,’ says Solywoda. ‘They’ll say, ‘You made it?’, and they think I’m grinding the grapes and all of that.’

Winemaking, the stuff of legendary tales and Oscar-winning films, comes laden with expectations. And a plastic bag of juice isn’t one of them. But two do-it-yourself winemaking shops say you can make great tasting wine with nary a vine–nor a hint of snootiness.

At Diamond Head Winery and Wine The Experience, for $300 to $400 (depending on the grape), you can produce one batch–28 to 30 750-milliliter bottles–of wine. Both spots offer varietals from around the world, including faves like Chardonnay, Merlot and Cabernet and more uncommon choices like South African Pinotage and German M¸ller Thurgau. They provide bottles, corks and seals and ingredients such as yeast, French and American oak, fining agents like bentonite clay (to clarify the wine) and even elderflowers for making Piesporter smell like Piesporter.

Just make sure you check your assumptions at the door, says Shannon Ball, owner and winemaker of Wine The Experience in Kapahulu. ‘Can you make a 10-year-old Burgundy here? No,’ says Ball, ‘But you can make a good wine. Wine that you would be proud to serve and happy to drink.’

Wine The Experience

Year-old Wine The Experience looks like an enoteca, with warm yellow walls, a large dark-wood tasting bar and a smattering of small tables. Ball may eventually open a wine bar serving house-made wines, but for now he sells wannabe vintners grape juice from more than 50 varietals from around the world–from a limited-edition Australian Petit Verdot ($360 a barrel) to white Zinfandel ($300).

Potential winemakers begin by tasting the young wines–the oldest sample Ball offers was bottled in October–and can mark their likes and dislikes on a tasting card. The one-ounce tastings are free, but Ball says he’ll start charging for samples if the privilege is abused. If customers wish to proceed, he schedules a winemaking session.

Ball allows up to 12 people to participate in the process. After two months, customers return to bottle the wine–an occasion people often turn into a party. Again, you can invite up to 12 guests, more if you bottle three to four batches of wine.

Jaslyn Hanamura and fiancÈe Joe Silver celebrated their engagement by bottling a port. Hanamura says she and Silver don’t regularly drink much wine, but liked the taste of the port. Making and bottling it with friends was the special, intimate event they were looking for.

‘It’s different things for different people,’ says Ball. ‘It depends on what you want to get out of it. It could be just a party or you could walk out with personalized giftsÖI think you get more out of it than price shopping the aisles at Costco, where you read a little placard that has a description that sounds nice.’

Wine The Experience, Kilohana Square, 1016 Kapahulu Ave (738-0738, www.winetheexperience.com)

Diamond Head Winery

Bottling and tasting parties also figure into Diamond Head Winery’s appeal. Owner Val Texeira charges $12 for 12 tastes of wine per guest. She limits the size of the parties to 16 and provides individuals with tasting cards to record their preferences. Customers can bring in their own p¸p¸ at no extra charge for two hours. If they decide to make a batch of wine, she’ll discount the tasting.

‘The first thing is, it’s a fun and the unique experience,’ says Texeira, who opened the winery in 2001. ‘We sell it more as an event than as a tasting.’

Texeira chose the industrial corridor of Sand Island Road as her location because the building’s high ceilings allow her to rack four levels of wine and keep a constant cool temperature–paramount to the winemaking process.

Diamond Head Winery feels a bit like seventh-grade science class–racks of fermenting wine in the background, fluorescent lights, sectioned winemaking stations with gleaming white Formica countertops. Customers get to fiddle with new gadgets and learn about fermentation science to make a very cool product–it’s clear why people are drawn to the process.

The low-key Texeira became a DIY winemaking convert when she visited a similar winery in Alaska. She touts the wines’ taste and low sulfites, but notes that the best publicity comes from people who have signed on to the program.

‘Advertising doesn’t really work for this business,’ Texeira says. ‘[Business grows through] word of mouth or someone giving you a bottle of wine.’

Diamond Head Winery, 330 Sand Island Access Rd (841-9463, www.diamondheadwinery.com)