Jim Szklenski on harvesting grapes: I like doing it. I always have."

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Left to their own devices, grapes will turn to vinegar.

Add a few important steps and you have wine. Resourceful humans puzzled that out more than 6,000 years ago.

The real challenge, it turns out, is finding a way to preserve the taste of fresh grape juice.

It wasn't until 1869 — 150 years ago — that New Jersey dentist Thomas Welch picked 40 pounds of Concord grapes from outside his house and cooked, squeezed and bottled them, creating 12 quarts of the world's first shelf-stable fruit juice.

That grape juice, used for co...