New Kensington man earns top honors for his red wine
After 35 years of amateur winemaking, Ron Chabal took one sip of a semi-sweet, smooth red Zinfandel wine and knew that he had a winner.
Chabal, 55, of New Kensington, is an international winemaking champ, winning Best in Show for red wines in the 2008 WineMaker magazine competition.
For the largest winemaking competition in North America, 4,321 entries from 48 states and six countries were taste-tested. The nod to Chabal's wine comes from judges with years of experience and expertise, who spent more than 1,000 hours judging the various submissions.
The wines were entered in 50 categories and included an astonishing array of varieties and wine styles, according to the magazine staff. The wine-tasting based scores on a 20-point scale evaluating appearance, aroma, taste, aftertaste and overall impression.
"I knew it was good, but I wanted a second opinion, and I knew (they) could be a true judge of character," says Chabal, who never had entered a competition.
"It's amazing that he won," says Kelsey Chabal, 10, who, along with her mother, Diane Chabal, and sister, Carly Chabal, 13, help crush grapes used to make the wine.
"He puts a lot of effort into making his wine."
Ron Chabal controls every step of creating the wine. With a background in chemistry at Penn State University and as an employee of Alcoa, he knows everything, from adjusting the pH balance of the juice by adding acid to determining how dark the wine will be.
He selects grapes from Consumers Produce in the Strip District section of Pittsburgh, which he says imports the freshest products. During spring, he purchases Chilean grapes to make a white wine. In the fall, he picks Zinfandel grapes from California to create robust red wines.
He added a malolactic bacteria to the prizewinning wine, enhancing its smooth finish, and left the skins of the grapes in the juice long enough to make it a rich red. He adds a certain amount of sugar, which, when fermented with the right yeast, makes the product yield a 12 percent alcohol level.
Then he lets the wine ferment in oak barrels for at least a year.
"Winemaking is a trend that's growing like crazy," Chabal says. "You can tailor the wine to be any way you want. You can make it simple or sophisticated."
He says his wife, Diane, is a great critic, second only to the expert judges who awarded him the honor.
"The bottles of wine make great gifts," Diane Chabal says. "And nothing beats serving your own homemade wine at dinner with friends. We've actually grown so accustomed to it that other (commercial) brands don't taste that good."
Chabel nows proudly serves his homemade wine in the engraved carafe he received for his award.
Making wine from kits
The United States ranks about 34th in the world in adult per capita wine consumption (about 2.4 gallons per person), and represents a huge market, according to the Wine Institute of California. The United States also ranks third in the world in total consumption (553 million gallons), so an interest in at least the taste is apparent.
Making wine from scratch isn't the only option one has in creating an enjoyable wine. Winemaking kits are available at stores, such as Ben's Homebrew in Tarentum.
Some of the winning entrants in the 2008 WineMaker magazine competition, in which Ron Chabal won Best of Show, used kits to produce quality wines. Kits can produce 30 bottles to 40 bottles of wine, and include step-by-step instructions for novice winemakers.
Winemaking kits include more than a dozen varieties of white, red and fruit-flavored wines. Ben Knoerdel, the owner of Ben's Homebrew, recommends fruit-flavored wines for beginners.
"Winemaking is increasing in popularity as a hobby because it's affordable and its non-taxed," Knoerdel, 29, of Tarentum, says. "The freedom and joy to do what you want also is an appeal. You can take a wine you enjoy that is dry and make it sweeter, or blend it. The control is there for the winemaker."
The wine kits, which range in price from $55 to $70, yield about 30 bottles. At about $2 per bottle, Knoerdel says the homemade wines make inexpensive holiday or host gifts that have a personal touch.
Winemakers should wait to enjoy the fruits of their labor -- wine made from kits takes one to four months to mature into a well-blended, mellow drink.
"It's a nice option, because you aren't limited by the harvest -- the kits are available all year round," Knoerdel says.
He says wine made from the kits ranges from 10 percent to 12 percent alcohol.
Ron Chabal never has made wine from a kit, but says that it is something he would like to try. He suggests kits for beginners, primarily because of the cost associated with buying equipment, produce and other supplies.
"There is a lot more capital, labor and equipment necessary for making wine from scratch," Chabal says. "Its a step up from the kits."
Creating wine from kits is like cooking, Chabal says. Everyone can start with the same ingredients and still produce a different-tasting product.
In the future, more people might be able to taste the products he creates, including raspberry and blackberry liqueurs and cherry wines. He says he has considered opening a winery.
