Out of Office: Richard Thiessens

I have fruit trees in my backyard … [My wife Meggie and I] would try to harvest some of the apples, but they weren’t particularly good for eating. So, I ended up with tons of buckets full of apples … [and I thought], “How do I use these for something useful?”

I started by learning the key process [of winemaking] … I experimented with juices from the store … with the different types of yeast to understand how they affected the flavors, different temperatures, different parts of my house for the fermentation process … I did tons of experimenting.

Having friends and family over, they all seem to like [my wine] … Once, I had coworkers try it and they didn’t even realize I had made it. That’s when I was like, “Oh, that’s pretty cool.” That was fulfilling, hearing that.

[I’ve always been] more interested with understanding differences in the process than the ultimate yield in the product … but I wouldn’t be surprised [if] in retirement, my wife and I wanted to buy a small vineyard or small piece of property and have it as something to keep us busy.