Before moonshine there must be wine.

   I guess I was a little ahead of myself
heralding that we will be making moonshine
soon. What I didn’t realize at the time was
that we had to make wine first.

As you can see in the first
picture that it was time
to pick the grapes.
In the second picture
we were using what they
told me was a ‘smecker’ way
to separate the grapes from
the stem.

   The word 'smecker' is really an interesting
and humorous thing here in Romania.
I am sure in other parts of the world there
are other names for it but I have only seen
in such an obvious form here.

   You might want to know what ‘smecker’
means about now. Well ‘smecker’ means
‘tricky’. I guess that the way
we were taking the grapes off
the stems was a clever way
to do it. They explained to
me that there are two types
of people in Romania. The
smeckers and the people who
cry because they got smecked.
So far I haven’t been smecked
yet, or at least I haven’t
realized it. Also the word they use
when someone is doing a act of trickiness
… he/she is doing ’smeckeria’. I and they
think it is a pretty funny concept. Sure
makes for a lot of laughs so far.

   Back to the wine making, the third picture
is pretty self explanatory. The grapes are
pressed and as you can see the results
(at that point) some pretty darn good
grape juice.

I don’t drink but the grape
juice was really good. After
that they put the juice in
some big jugs and as of right
now it is fermenting. I am not
sure but I think that in about two
weeks it should be close to
being ready.

   The leftovers of the pressed grapes aren’t
thrown away. They are being saved for
the upcoming moonshine/tsoika making
event.

   I have been told that next week is the
moonshine making time.

Should be a hoot.