By Jan Landon
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

Granville Bohannan will put his wine up against any bottle of commercial wine out there. In blind taste tests, his merlots, zinfandels, and other wines have always come out on top.

Making wine is a passion for the Overland Park, Kan., resident.

“Making wine is a pleasure of life,” Bohannan says.

He and his wife Katie will move later this year to Tallgrass Creek. Bohannan, who also goes by “Bo,” is interested in finding other wine lovers and starting a club at the Tallgrass Creek community.

Home-based winery
Bohannan is quick to offer an explanation of how his small home winery works. There are the boxes of sterilized bottles, the fermenter, the carboys (6-gallon  glass containers where fermenting continues), and the final bottled products.

Making wine is both an art and a science. Details like temperature, specific gravity (the ratio of the density of wine to the density of pure water, measured by an instrument called a hydrometer), and fining (clarifying wine with certain additives) are all done with precision.

The art comes through deciding what the perfect ingredients are, when wine is ready to be bottled, and when it is time to pour. Bohannan opens a small wine cabinet to reveal dozens of bottles of wine. “The quality is so good once you  get going, it’s a real pleasure,” he says.

The Bohannans started making and enjoying wine in 2004 after visiting a friend in Branson, Mo. After the friend helped set them up, the Bohannans have never looked back.

An evening ritual
The Bohannans are fun to be around. They chide and kid, but they don’t  interrupt each other. Instead they listen to the other’s story like it’s the first time it has been told. Each evening the Bohannans have a glass or two of wine and talk. Between them they have a lot to talk about.