Homemade wine costs about 50 cents per bottle to make, aside from the initial investment in buying kit equipment and bottles.

We bought our bottles for almost nothing at the local redemption center and use them from year to year. If your fruit is free, the per-bottle cost includes a cork, sugar and yeast. Most of the 50 cents is to buy the cork.

The process is simple, and not time-consuming, though you will want to do some Internet research or borrow a library book.

We’ve successfully made wine from the Concord grapes that grew wild on our property. This wine in particular impressed relatives who were knowledgeable wine drinkers. We’ve also made wine from our cultivated grapes. I’ve had homemade blueberry wine that was good.

We currently make our best wine from our blackberries. Often we’ve used the blackberries from the freezer that didn’t get eaten during the course of the year. Right now I have about 40 bottles of blackberry wine in my basement made over the last few years… some better than others.

We have been guilty of making bad wine as well. Sometimes it’s too sweet, has very low alcohol content or blows off the cork in the basement. We were not happy with experiments with rhubarb, pear and strawberry wines. We’re novices, so don’t know why some things work, and some doesn’t. But even with less successful batches, we’re out only a few dollars.

For fifty cents per bottle it doesn’t need to be amazing wine. It just needs to be good enough.