I visited Mike and Sally
Mahoney at their Cork 'N Keg wine store in Wallaceburg on Friday 9th
September 2005. You can tell they are passionate about their business and
customers can get a great service so let me tell you a little bit about
how it works...
There are lots of wine kits
which can be purchased to make your own wine and you can also purchase
everything you need like yeast, bottles, corks, labels, etc. What makes
their business extra interesting is that they can make it all for you and
often at a fraction of the price you'd purchase wine from the LCBO.
When you decide to get them
to make your wine for you the process is simple. First you decide on
what wine kit to purchase. Should you need advise just talk to Mike
or Sally and they will advise on the best wine to meet your needs.
You can select between 7% up to 18% alcohol content, white, red or rose or
champagne type. If you have a wine you like you can take it in with you
and they will do their best to create a wine as near as possible.
Once you have decided on
your kit you are taken into the winery to start making your wine and due
to the laws of Canada you must have a hand in making it. Mind you it
is rather easy and can be done in under 20 minutes. Mike will do all the
mixing you need and all you need to do is add the yeast... yes it is as
simple as that and they also guide you through this simple process.
Having done that you just
need to wait some 4 weeks for your wine to ferment and be bottled. You can
even visit a day before the bottling process to taste it and if you'd like
it a wee bit dryer or sweeter they can adjust that before the final
bottling process.
You can also have it
bottled in large or normal wine bottles, it's your choice. Usually the
basic wine kit will produce 30 normal wine bottles. I was also told when
there that a customer had asked for 20 bottles of the normal wine but to
carbonate the other 10 to give them a champagne type wine. You thus have
total flexibility in how you select your wine and have it bottled.
They also have many wee
gifts in the shop which are always great for a present to someone at any
time of the year.
So.. let me show you the
pictures I took while I was there...
So now you know what to look for when you go
to the shop and also the opening hours :-)
And now we head into the
shop...
And here we meet Mike and Sally Mahoney
Thought I'd walk around from left to let you
see what they have in the shop
I thought I'd now take some
close in shots before heading into the Winery...
And now we head into the
Winery :-)
And as you can see there are a lot of wine
drinkers in Wallaceburg :-)
So just select your kit and follow into the
Winery and that's your very own wine starting on the journey to a bottle
and check out some of the prices on the right
And here we can see purchase being made and
then being shown the process your wine will go through from very clouldy
and frothy to lovely and clear and ready to drink
And as you can see you can get big bottles or
normal bottles :-)
And here is a price list for the kits
And so there you have a
tour of Cork 'N Keg. I really enjoyed by tour and learned a lot and
will be sure to visit again to place my order :-) |