WINEMAKING GETS PERSONAL BURBANK BUSINESS HELPS CUSTOMERS BOTTLE THEIR OWN.

Byline: Susan Abram Staff Writer

BURBANK - Jane Peet produced 29 bottles of Old Vine Zinfandel last December, and she didn't even have to crush one grape.

She didn't have to travel miles to a vineyard or get her hands stained with juice. And she certainly didn't have to wait years to age her product into the fine batch she now sips quietly with family and friends.

All she did was walk three blocks to the Winemaking Store on Olive Avenue, pick out a box of juice concentrate and pour the contents into a sterile plastic pail. From there, the batch was transferred into a 5-gallon glass carboy, where it bubbled and foamed and fermented for weeks.

A month and a half later, she lugged out 29 bottles.

``It's very good wine,'' she said. ``This place is a great addition to Burbank. It's great fun, and you get 29 bottles for about 99 bucks.''

Word on the grapevine is that the Winemaking Store is among the first in California in what may eventually become a crop of make-your-own-wine shops.

The trend has already caught on in Canada, experts say, where hundreds of urban winemakers turn out their own merlots and cabernets, zinfandels and chardonnays in sterile, laboratory-type conditions. Amateur winemakers are drawn to the idea that they can make their own wine any time in the season and almost anywhere.

Home winemaking ``is such a huge business these days,'' said Vic Bourassa, president of the Napa Valley Home Winemakers Association. ``The wine industry is going bonkers.''

In Napa Valley, home winemaking is so popular that crush spaces for people who pick their own grapes are in high demand, Bourassa said.

That's why places like the Winemaking Store could begin to see replicas of itself soon.

``I see this little scenario as a great business idea,'' Bourassa said.

Winemaker Magazine publisher Brad Ring said home winemaking has grown as a hobby in the United States in the last five years, thanks to the winemaking kits such as those sold at the Olive Avenue shop.

Juices in the kits are produced from vineyards all over the world, allowing buyers to be selective. Wine produced from the kits is even entered in competition, Ring said.

``They produce terrific wine,'' he said.

Inside the Burbank shop and boutique, dozens of glass carboys sit on shelves, filled to the rim with deep dark red or soft golden juices. The contents of each bubble and foam slowly as fermentation takes place.

Co-owner Pat Bentley said she monitors the fermentation process from beginning to end for customers, from taking gravity readings to filtering.

Customers come and check on their products several times during the process, adding flavors such as oak. At the end of the fermenting cycle, they bottle their wine in-house, plug in a cork and slap on a homemade label.

Bentley said she and her husband, Peter, got the idea to open the Winemaking Store after visiting Canada, where similar shops had popped up.

The couple is selective when choosing the winemaking kits, which include packets of yeast and other additives that customers add themselves, Bentley said.

Now more than 3 years old, the Winemaking Store has churned out thousands of bottles of wine. Among the most popular are the Italian pinot grigios, and French chardonnays. Chilean and Australian wines have also caught on, Bentley said.

``We've stopped counting,'' Bentley said of the numbers of bottles the store has helped produce. ``But I do know the reds are definitely more popular than the whites, from 2 to 1.''

Those who come to the store to bottle their wine usually turn the affair into a party, Bentley said.

``It's a great hobby for some people,'' Bentley said. ``They can leave all the mess here.''

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(1 -- 2) Patricia Bentley, above, is co-owner of The Winemaking Store in Burbank, where customers can make a batch of their own wine, enough to fill 29 bottles. The store features everything needed, including a variety of corks, left.

John McCoy/Staff Photographer