Merlot?

When I was little, I used to walk alot.  I suppose it was the only way that I could get some quiet time in our otherwise noisy and chaotic house full of people.  My beautiful grandma lived with us for a time and that brought the house inhabitants to eleven – my parents chose to have 8 kids in 10 years – no wonder they’re both resting in peace!!!

My Dad taught French and German at Xavier University and we lived on the back side of the XU library and Jesuit residence hall.  My claim to fame as a student is that I could get out of bed at 8:15, get a shower, and still get to my 8:30 class on time – we lived closer than some of the dorm students.

My Godfather taught chemistry at Xavier and his lab was surrounded by windows that graced a sidewalk on the main pedestrian drag of campus.  Anytime I walked, I went by those windows.  Sometimes he was there and would wave at me  – othertimes the lab was dark and empty but still held a particular fascination with all it’s beakers, vials, compounds and measuring instruments.  My curiosity never led me to request an audience with him in his lab – I was unbelievably shy – but the love for mixing, experimenting, brewing was born there.

Yesterday I made soap with Merlot – yes, wine.  I chose Merlot because it is dark red and I anticipated a beautiful reddish swirled soap – one that I could fragrance with a natural fruity essence.  Well, first of all, the Merlot behaved very badly in the lye mixture – WORSE than the dark beers.  It fussed and fumed, stunk and literally rattled the pan.  When blended with the butters and oils it tried to seize on me – however, being an experienced soapmaker, I won – ha ha.  (Howver, it did not swirl as I wanted and the color is brown not anything suggesting the beautiful color of Merlot).

So, of course, in honor of my loving Godfather, Richard Garascia the chemist – I tried again.  This time I mixed the lye with water first, thinking maybe the lye scalded the color out of the wine.  When the lye water was cool enough, I mixed in the Merlot – guess what? – the lye mixture heated up again……..I’ve never seen this happen.  So the lye/water/merlot mixture still ended up brown but when mixed with the butters and oils, it did not misbehave as badly – and this morning I unmolded 18 bars of very nice wine soap.

My customers will undoubtedly ask, as they do with beer soap, “so what does wine contribute to the soap?”  Sometimes I just want to say that I do it for fun, for a challenge, to keep life interesting, to fight boredom, to sell soap.  But really, anything made with the good ingredients that go in both wine and beer have to be good for your skin too.

I just wish I could stomp around barefoot in a barrel of grapes!