So winemaking goes back a ways in my maternal family, back to the old country. I grew up around the winemaking process (picking, pressing, fermenting, racking, aging). My wife's father makes his own wine as well, and her grandfather made it too, so it's on both sides of our family.
However, being that both our families are in cold climates, there are questions they can't answer for me - What's different if you're making wine in a warm climate? In Florida, we don't have basements or cellars (it doesn't work out well at sea level). We have A/C, but not in the garage where I'd likely want to perform this process. Controlled cool temperatures seem pretty important to the fermentation process and the aging process. Am I going to have to convert one of the bedrooms to a wine room? Is 72 degrees OK or do I need to get it down to the 60s somehow?
In addition, we don't have the same varieties of grapes - the winters aren't long enough for most varieties. I am growing scuppernongs. Are there any tricks to making with with a muscadine variety versus the northern standards like concords? We've tried the fruit (yum!), but the vine is only on its 2nd year, so I have another year or two before I let it start producing grapes en masse.
I'm going to try to find some places to ask around locally, but since we have a forum I might as well ask here too
