The garage in question is located in a newer housing tract in Strongsville, a Cleveland suburb. And despite 175 gallons of wine aging in giant glass jugs against one wall of the garage (state and federal regulations allow hobbyists to make no more than 200 gallons per year), and another 30 cases of wine in bottles, there is still room for at least one car.

"We make good wine," says Tom Cobette, gesturing toward some of the more than 30 medals he and his wife, Jan, have won since squishing their first grapes five years ago. Their garage wines regularly best commercial wineries at blind tastings. "It is easy," says Cobette, a mild-mannered metals-industry consultant. "If you just put grapes in a crock and let it sit, it will form into wine."

Over the last five years, a dramatically increasing number of Ohioans have discovered that with $50 worth of gizmos and a few months patience, they can produce wine at home for the cost of grape juice. A bottle of wine as good as what most people buy at the store can be made for less than the price of a gallon of milk.

The state does not license home winemakers, so it is difficult to determine their exact number. But the cork has popped, say people who sell supplies. "You have everyone from farmers to people living in $300,000 houses who are doing it," says Eileen Leverentz, co-owner of Leener's Brew Works in Northfield, where sales of wine-making kits have leapt 25 to 30 percent every month since September 2001. "We are swamped."

Membership in the Central Ohio Wine Guild, a winemaking club, has jumped from 80 to 140 in just two years' time. And sales of start-up equipment kits from L.D. Carleson, a national wholesaler based in Kent, rocketed more than 4,000 percent since 1997, says Nancy Ohm, a wine specialist there. "Home winemaking has grown tremendously," she says.

The public is more knowledgeable today about fine wine than just a few years ago, and news that wine is good for your health has added to the public's thirst. But experts say that here in Ohio, the explosion in home winemaking has been fueled primarily by the grapes.

Ohio's commercial wineries are becoming better and more numerous, and are offering more and better grapes and juice to local amateurs. And improvements in technology for packing juice have allowed distributors to begin importing high-quality, vintage juice from France, Italy and other countries.

Within the last five years, a process that uses centrifugal force, instead of heat, to concentrate raw juice has become popular with juice distributors. The juice produces better wine, and is generally sold in kits that include the yeast to make it sing, extras like oak chips or berries, and foolproof instructions. "These are fine wines," says John Pastor, an owner of Grape and Granary, a winemaking and beer-brewing supply shop in Akron.

The kits produce a more sophisticated wine than the traditional backyard vino. Winemakers following old-country family traditions often simply squash grapes and wait for natural yeast on the grape skin to do the rest. It works, but results are inconsistent. And traditional winemakers often don't add sulfites to their juice, which limits the wine's shelf life to about a year.

By contrast, a Cabernet Sauvignon from a $75 kit using French grapes is best left to age in the bottle for four years, letting flavors meld and giving tannins the chance to mellow. Given the time, enthusiasts say, the 30 bottles from the kit will be as good as bottles that sell for $8 to $16 in the store.

"You have to have the patience," says Gloria Kujawa, a retired nurse who began making wine from a kit in her Canal Winchester basement last February. She started with a Chardonnay, and now has four more vintages in various stages of development. "It is like making a cake mix," she says. "You get the ingredients and just follow directions."

A knowledgeable home winemaker can beat the kit wines, and enthusiasts claim that commercial wines aren't that hard to beat either. Because they are dealing with a much smaller volume, home winemakers can exercise more control over their wine than commercial wineries can. People become addicted.

Sitting at his kitchen table with a wine glass of his Cotes de Cuyahoga, Tom Cobette explains that it is not a great wine, certainly not his best, but good enough for everyday drinking. It was an artful blend of three vintages he already had in his garage. "If I could do it over again, I'd begin when I was younger and learn how to grow grapes," says Cobette, 51, twirling his glass.