DIARY OF A WINEMAKER
by growwiner DON PANAGAPKA
a member of the Kitchener-Waterloo Winemakers Guild
{Editor's note - Don Panagapka is, in my experience, a fierce competitor, great wine and cidermaker, and a general class act. His tribute to retiring Chief Judge Peter Pigeon of the Wine Judges Commission of Ontario was very moving and well-received (as well as well-earned by Peter!). My hope is that Don will continue to give we lesser winemakers a target to shoot for...LFW} See also Making Rose
Today, I need to go on and learn more.
Don Panagapka
member club, AMATEUR WINEMAKERS OF ONTARIO
I still remember that phone call in 1974 when my friend Dave asked me if I would like to make some wine. I informed him that I didn't know the first thing about winemaking and so how was I to make wine? He assured me that he knew what he was doing and in a few weeks could I go down to the Burlington market (I lived in Waterdown at the time) and pick up some Concord grapes there. Weeks later after picking up the 2 bushels of grapes I proceeded to call Dave who informed me that it wasn't him but instead, his neighbour who knew how to make the wine. Unfortunately, said Dave, his neighbour had moved away. At that point I looked at the grapes and decided that I had 3 alternatives. I could eat the grapes, but they would be rotten before I even got partly through them. I could throw them out. Or I could make wine. Needless to say I chose the latter. So, back to the Burlington market I went and returned with a book called The Art of Winemaking by an author called Anderson.
In those early unintentional cork-popping days Concord and Niagara grapes provided me and my friends the opportunity to socialise and hand-pick every grape off their stems so that we would end up with the finest wine that an amateur could make. Two years later I was made aware of a revolutionary "better" grape called Dechaunac. Needless to say I was anxious to try this new "hybrid" variety and for the next four years until 1980 Dechaunac was the "oats" of my winecellar. Of course my curiosity for winemaking carried me to the fruit category where I was told that dandelions made a great wine. After cleaning an entire football field of dandelions, a mere 8 hour job I may add, I looked down at that sea of yellow in my primary fermenter and poured in the nine tablespoons of acid that Mr. Anderson had recommended in his book. Not being the most careful winemaker at the time I mistakenly put in nine tablespoons of a substance called Potassium Sulphate (after all, the crystals were the same colour) instead. It seemed to give off a choking odor and after a day I figured out my error and pitched the wine.
Now, I tend to be a little persistent so the dandelion thing only caused me to pause, and not give up winemaking. After all there were blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and all sorts of other things you could make wine from. A new kid on the block, Peter Pigeon, whom I introduced to winemaking in 1976 mentioned that he had joined a wine club called the K-W Winemaker's Guild and that he was learning a lot about winemaking. I recall hime relating to me "Gap, for God's sake they spent an entire evening talking about cleaning agents for bottles". Of course, I thought that there was nothing that they could teach me and so I didn't join for 2 or 3 years until I realized that Peter had surpassed me in winemaking skills, at which time I joined the club.
I wanted to make better and better wine and so tried to win a few wine classes at our club level and to send those off to the AWO finals. In those days of first places only going on, I was limited to between 3 and 6 wines that I managed to send to the finals. I never seemed to "hit" at the AWO finals. Wine class by wine class would pass by without a mention of my name or wine. It just didn't make any sense to me. Why couldn't I make wines as good as anybody else in the province. Every year I would go back to the drawing board trying to improve on present wines and try new categories. Placements at AWO dribbled in but it was agonizingly slow. Anticipation almost to the point of hyperventilating as they announced the winners, would turn into painful reality. Then, in 1995, I broke through that barrier and finally started firing on all cylinders. The rest is history. 
I still, to this day, ask myself "what was it that I did that made that change so quickly in 1995?" I attribute my success to the following:
i) enter most wine classes and make the best possible wine that I could make in that class
ii) start with the best product possible
iii) learn as much information as I could about each of those wine classes
iv) buy and taste commercial samples of various wines to have a standard to shoot for. Try to understand the components that make up the commercial wines (tannins, sugars, intensity, e.t.c.) and attempt to emulate them through the amateur venue
v) learn as much about the components of tasting (acid, tannins, e.t.c.) and what faults were and what caused them
vi) above all, BALANCE THE WINES
I fully understand that winemakers are an assorted lot. For many, socializing is their primary focus. Others make only table wines, and still others like to specialize in one or more areas. Our common interest is in making better and better wines. What can you do this year to maintain your interest? If you do exactly the same thing as you did last year perhaps your interest in winemaking will wane. Why not try some new winemaking techniques? Why not try a new wine class that you haven't tried before? For repetition breeds boredom and learning breeds excitement. So, let's get excited!
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