Carmine Toto III, right, and student Cindy Braun of Branchville scoop out the fermented grapes and put them into the presser. Danielle Austen / Daily Record

By Jenna M. McKnight, Daily Record

  MADISON -- It's dusk and class is just getting under way at the rustic, family-owned wine school tucked in the folds of this town rich in Italian heritage.

Cindy Braun, a 47-year-old student from Branchville, dons a white apron splattered with purple stains and wields a massive silver scoop.

She dips it into a vat filled with 500 pounds of fermenting red grapes -- zinfandel, cabernet sauvignon and petite sirah, to be exact.

"Just scoop 'em up and plop 'em in here," said her instructor, Carmine Toto III, while motioning to a wooden press imported from Italy.

Welcome to the Villa Rose Wine School, where students not only learn the craft of winemaking, but also feel the pulse of Italian culture.

Toto, 32, opened the school last summer after studying the craft and making his own wine for the past decade. It's a hobby that evolved into a passion, he said, and one that helps celebrate and preserve his Italian roots.

Depending upon what type of wine they want, students pay $1,300 to $1,800 for enough grapes to produce their own 50-gallon barrel of wine, which yields about 240 bottles. The grapes are ordered from California and arrive in August through October.

Tuition includes one-on-one instruction in the 10-month winemaking process, from crushing to pressing, storing to bottling. There are additional fees for buying or renting barrels and bottles.

On the last Wednesday in October, a small crowd gathered for the final press of the season. One by one, an eclectic mix of friends and relatives, about a dozen of them, arrived to watch and socialize. They talked business, gabbed about family affairs and laughed. A lot.

"There's always activity here," Toto said, while shuffling around the small room filled with stacked, wooden barrels.

"It's all the time. There's never a dull moment at the villa."

Braun, a general manager at a Madison-based shipping company, said the price is a steal considering all of the wine you get to take home.

"When all is said and done, it's going to be $7 or $8 a bottle," she said. "I don't think that's pricey at all."

The Villa Rose Wine School -- named so because of Madison's "Rose City" moniker -- is one of about 10 of its kind across the state. What makes it distinct, Toto said, is its quaint ambience.

Rather than constructing a warehouse, the family converted an old garage that resembles a wooden barn into a wine classroom and storage area.

It's nestled on a partially wooded 5-acre property that Toto's grandfather, Carmine Toto Sr., 88, purchased more than 70 years ago shortly after moving to the area from a village south of Rome. He was one of many who immigrated to Madison from Italy.

Toto's father, Carmine Jr., is happy to give visitors a tour of the property near the Madison YMCA. It once was considered "junk" real estate because of its proximity to a freight yard that no longer exists.

Today, the property boasts a bocce ball court and a workshop converted into a small meeting hall for the local Italian club, which meets every Friday night to feast and play cards.

There's also a large, old swimming pool, a barbecue pit for all that "good Italian cooking," and an arbor covered with 50-year-old Concord grape vines. Toto Jr. said they used to make jelly out of those grapes.

"This is a very old-fashioned, unique Italian history lesson back here," he said.

"This is the way I grew up. Keep the family close and a lot of Italian tradition. I'm still trying to preserve that."

The wine school is one way of doing that. Toto said many people, particularly Italian-Americans, take the class because it reminds them of how their grandparents made wine.

Frank Sena, for instance, is a carpenter and retired police officer from Madison, who is producing a barrel of chianti. He was there on Wednesday night to help out, wearing an apron that read "Pick Me, Squeeze Me, Make Me Wine."

"Only when I was a kid with my grandfather down in the basement," he said when asked whether he had made wine before. "He used to do two barrels every year."

Sena said he's rekindling the tradition because he likes drinking wine with pasta, and he enjoys having a glass while he's sitting around chatting with friends and family.

"It's healthy for you," he said. "And it keeps you connected to the old country."

Toto already has attracted a following. He has about 50 students this year, he said, many of whom have teamed up to split the cost of a barrel.

Braun and her husband joined with three other couples to produce two barrels, a merlot and a chardonnay. She also has partnered with Toto to make a wine she once tasted in a restaurant in Copenhagen, Denmark -- the zinfandel, cabernet sauvignon and petite sirah bouquet that the group worked on Wednesday night. It will be ready for drinking in July.

Braun said she heard about the wine school through her husband, who once worked with Toto. She joined the class because, as a wine enthusiast, she's fascinated with the winemaking process.

"I have a small wine cellar in my house," she said. "We sort of collect and enjoy."

Toto said the response has been good so far, thanks to the support of his family and friends.

"That's how everything starts, with family and friends, and it grows," he said. "We'll see. We'll see how it grows."