Phil Your Glass: Vintage memories: Joe Piscazzi has sweet time with 1920s wine press

Even though he no longer restores classic Italian sports cars, Joe Piscazzi is still known as one of the best garage guys around town.

Instead of cars, Piscazzi now tinkers with his father’s 1920s wine press. His Cuyahoga Falls home garage winery has become just as famous as his former American Auto Body garage.

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Wine has always been an important part of the Piscazzi family. Joe’s brother John was the famous Wine Merchant in the Merriman Valley, and his grandfather was the legendary Whiskey Dick Percoco.

On a recent Saturday, Piscazzi was in the garage with his grandson Anthony, 43, son Rocco “Rocky,” 64, and good friend Kirk Cutler. A lot has changed since Piscazzi, now 89, and his father, Rocco, made wine back in the day.

“We used to get muscatel and zinfandel off the railroad cars in downtown Akron,” said Rocky, who has been helping his father make wine since the early 1970s.

While sipping on a glass of his red wine, Piscazzi talked about the early days of paying $2.48 a crate for grapes that arrived at the Broadway train station from California. And how it took 18 crates to make a barrel of wine.

“By the time they got here, the grapes were weeping, rotting and moldy,” he explained. “Very seldom did you make a fine wine from those grapes.”

“You got what God and nature delivered,” Piscazzi said.

For the past 60 years, Piscazzi has been working on the perfect body and finish.

“Now we buy better grapes from Napa Valley,” Rocky said. “I doubt there’s too many people in Akron doing that.”

Piscazzi had a half-ton of flash-frozen grapes shipped from Red Mountain in Washington state and Coombsville, California, in the Napa Valley. Shipping logistics made it impossible to get the grapes in the fall, so their home crush took place during the first week of May this year.

His team of advisers includes a famous winemaker in Napa Valley (who I am not at liberty to mention), and former Pahlmeyer winemaker David Sheffer, who now works with his grandson Anthony at The Merchant Tavern as head stiller of Towpath Distillery.

“Ever since he started working for us, Grandpa has had David on speed dial,” Anthony said as he started filling the press with grapes from one of the three 50-gallon containers shipped in from the West Coast.

“I started getting into some really good advisers on how to make really good wine,” Piscazzi said as he took a break from filling the press. “I realized I didn’t have 60 years of experience. I had one year of experience 60 times. I was not perfecting the art.

“A well-known wine maker from California told me how to extract more color and more flavor.”

The wines bottled at the tiny Marcia Boulevard garage are the best in the area, and Piscazzi is not shy about telling you, either.

“If you had this wine in a restaurant and they charged you $100 a bottle, you wouldn’t say another word. It’s pretty good,” Piscazzi said.

As the free run juice came off the press, Piscazzi helped top off his new $1,400 French oak barrel. The days of his father filling an old used whiskey barrel are long gone.

“They would use the same $8 barrel for 30 years,” Piscazzi said. “They sure got their money’s worth.”

Anthony and his grandfather grabbed a plastic cup for a sample of the juice. This year’s grapes are a blend of 80% cabernet and 20% merlot. About 20% of the cabernet grapes were purchased from well-known grape grower John Caldwell of Coombsville, California.

“It doesn’t have the depth as previous vintages,” Anthony said. “But it’s going to be nice.”

Piscazzi’s wife, Judy, stopped by the garage to check on the project. She sent down a plate of olives and salami to munch on while the crew pressed the grapes. Judy was trying to get an idea on when to have lunch ready for everyone.

The crew continued to press, filling the oak barrel and disposing of the spent seeds and skins called pomace. Piscazzi, who sometimes uses a cane for walking, sat for a rest and took another sip of wine.

After a little playful ribbing from the guys, Piscazzi quickly reminded them that “every job needs a boss.”

Anthony and Rocco took the lead in the winemaking process, so Piscazzi slipped into his cellar to pull a couple of bottles of “working wine” to sample.

“These are damn good wines,” he said as he poured a side-by-side sample of the 2016 and 2017 Piscazzi Family red blend to taste.

A couple of hours passed and the last drops of juice trickled off the press. The oak barrel had been filled and two other vessels of topping wine were nearly full.

While the crew cleaned up, Piscazzi wrapped an electric blanket around his prized oak barrel with the family name stenciled in black, tucking it in like a newborn grandson. It will take about two weeks for the secondary fermentation to occur.

The men then headed upstairs to the kitchen to enjoy a traditional Italian feast.

“Anything Judy makes is food for the gods,” said Cutler who worked at the body shop in the 1970s. “She’s a fantastic cook.”

Aromas of fresh baked focaccia bread filled the air. Bowtie pasta with ricotta, parmesan and spinach were topped with Judy’s home made red sauce. There was a nice salad, and a slice of pizza dolce, one of Judy’s specialty sweet treats. There was plenty of Piscazzi red blend to go around.

All the while, there was chatter at the table about where they will order the grapes for the 2022 vintage.

Write to Phil Masturzo at philyourglass@gmail.com.

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This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Joe Piscazzi makes wine with 1920s press