The next Robert Mondavi?

“Can you come today?”

It’s my friend Kim on the phone.

“They’re red, they’re ready. They’re free wine!”

He’s talking about his vast vineyard. Okay, it just covers the fencing around the deck he built atop his garage. “Might get 15 bottles out of this,” he says as he hands me gloves and clippers. “Just don’t fall off the roof.”

Three (exhausting) hours later, we waddle down the steps with two large punnets of “vinifera King’s ruby” grapes still on their stalks.

“That’s it then?” I say. I’m looking for an out.

“Uh, not quite,” he says. “We’ve got to start them on their journey to wine, my friend. And I know you want to be part of it.”

“I do?”

He hauls out this 40-gallon gray plastic drum to a dappled sunlit spot under a tree. Soon, we’re tipping the grapes in.

“So is this when I take my flip flops off?” I say.

“Oh no. No foot stomping on this wine,” he says. “How do I know where your feet have been?”

He grabs what looks like a giant potato masher.

“That’s exactly what it is,” he says. “For industrial kitchens.” And he starts squashing the grapes. They don’t want to go. “It’ll take a few days. This is called punching down. Their skins will break, and gradually they will turn into must, young wine juice. And this is where you come in.”

Uh oh. He wants me to come every day. Squish the grapes all around. Scrape the bottom. It turns out Kim has heard of a vineyard in Idaho going for a song. He’s heading north. “All you’ll have to do,” he says, “is punch down every day for the next week. I’ll put the sulfites in. They get rid of bacteria spoilage and wild yeast. I’ll put the Fermaid powder in to help fermentation.”

He says he’ll also “check for Brix” with his hydrometer. “It measures density, the percentage of sugar by weight in the juice. I’m hoping for around 20.5 Brix. That’d predict around 12 percent alcohol when it’s ready, which is what we want.”

“Yes but when? When’s it going to be ready to drink?” I say. “Months?”

“No way! Ten days. Maybe a little longer for it to settle,” Kim says. “By then you’ll be able to add ‘vintner’ to your resume. Think of that, my friend.”

Hmm. Of course, I can’t resist. Next day, I scurry over to his place, opening up the bin, taking the nose-hit of fermenting grapes, getting the potato masher and sinking it down into ever-more liquid must. As the days proceed, it’s becoming less smelly and more winey. Soon enough, I find myself talking to it, picking out twigs and grape branches. It comes bubbling back up at me like some grateful little animal. There’s something about dealing with life itself here. I resist having Deep Thoughts. But I do like the feeling I’m joining a brother/sisterhood that probably included Pliny the Elder and a zillion peasants through the millennia who did just this, tapping into life’s energies to create a magic ruby elixir. Can’t wait for the moment when we actually drink it. Must remember to take over some cheese and salami and a big long baguette. Only five days to go.