As I recall, it was a winter evening late last year when I made my declaration. My wife was reading by the fireplace and I was enjoying a black ale that I had brewed about six months earlier.

“I have decided to quit making beer,” I stated in my most convincing voice.

“Um-hum,” replied my wife absently. Apparently she had heard me say this before.

“No, I am serious this time! I am no longer making beer. I will buy beer in the stores like most other people,” I insisted.

“Um-hum,” replied my wife again. She had heard that one too. Most likely it was peppered with a few well-placed expletives and coincided with an ill-timed brewing mishap.

“Well,” I said, after she continued to ignore my life-changing proclamation, “aren’t you going to ask what I will do instead of brewing beer?”

When it comes to my hobbies, I am quite attuned to my wife and I know her like a favorite ale recipe. The thoughts that passed though her mind in that split second were something like this:

“What is he going to get into now? Oh, please don’t let it be moonshining. He could blow up the whole house doing that! Plus, he told me that was illegal! What is he going to do with all the equipment he has in the basement? What is this going to cost? OH NO, what is he going to do to my kitchen this time?!”

“Why would you quit making beer? You love brewing,” she said sweetly, realizing that brewing suddenly looked a lot better than it had a few minutes before.

“I need to expand my horizons,” I insisted, “I am a renaissance man and I want to open myself up to new things. Plus, you like wine so it will be something we both enjoy.”

I had an image in my mind of a dusty room in our basement that did not exist, with wine racks from floor to ceiling. Everyone had to start somewhere, right? I would plant vines, make wine, expand and maybe even give the vineyard tours myself. Of course at the moment I had five carboys and some grapevines that had yet to produce enough grapes to keep the local birds interested. Overall, I was off to a good start. My wife turned her interests back to her book with a somewhat vexed look that was not there a few minutes ago.

The transition from beer to wine was much less difficult than I expected. As a matter of fact, most of the equipment I used for beer works equally well when making wine. I had some concerns about my lack of experience in winemaking so I chose a Pinot Grigio kit and a new six-gallon (23-L) glass carboy.

I began by sanitizing all my equipment and getting out my large brew kettle named Barney (I am going under the assumption that all brewers name their kettles and carboys). I sat Barney aside for the moment and read the instructions. Step one did not require a long slow boil. Barney stared at me accusingly but said nothing. I read on. The remainder of the process did not require a long slow boil either. As a matter of fact, there was no need for a brew kettle at all (I had a feeling Barney and I might be spending a lot less time together in the future). I would have to retire my hop bags, my gas cooker and my mash tun as well! I would have to start making new friends in this endeavor. Well, no one said becoming a renaissance man would be easy.

I followed the instructions that came with my wine kit, checked my specific gravity (exactly where it needed to be), checked the must temperature, pitched my yeast and . . . that was it. I sat stunned in the kitchen as Barney looked on in infuriated silence. Is this what retired people complain about when they leave the workforce? My first kit beer took at least two hours before I could pitch any yeast. This whole process was done in 20 minutes and my wife’s kitchen had a different look about it. It was clean. Maybe wine was the way to go after all.

I deserved a beer to celebrate this new boon. I reached into the refrigerator and found an India pale ale I had made over the summer that I was very proud of. I put oak chips in the secondary fermentation which gave it a really nice, dry finish. But enough about that; I was now a winemaker and I left the beer making to those who wanted to spend afternoons watching for boil-overs, making sure hop bags didn’t stick to the bottom of the kettle and cleaning the kitchen. I thought, at that point, I was going to enjoy a much simpler way of life.

Over the next few weeks, the wine behaved exactly as the instructions said it would. It cleared beautifully and turned a nice golden color. I cleaned and sanitized thirty wine bottles, filled them, corked them and sat them in what would be my new wine cellar. As I contemplated the overall experience of my first batch of wine, I knew that something was wrong. It wasn’t in the wine itself, after countless bad batches of beer; I knew what failure tasted like. It wasn’t in the winemaking, which had been an enjoyable venture. I just felt as though something was missing.

Suddenly, it came to me. My wife was right again! What I missed was the smell of hops, the satisfaction of a successful starch conversion and the taste of barley. I missed making beer. I had been too quick to set aside my brewing, especially when both interests complement each other. It is possible to do both! A true renaissance man would have known that — my wife knew it. In the end, I found that learning a new craft does not mean completely leaving another behind, and that I should listen to my wife on occasion.