Last year I grew 50 bunches of grapes on my vine, but they were a bit on the small side. This year I was more ruthless when pruning and it did make a difference. But what can I do with all these grapes?
My grandparents had a grape vine
I used to love exploring their garden, and this included wandering into the enveloping warmth of their greenhouse. It was an old fashioned brick-walled building, glazed from a few feet above the ground to the top of the pointed roof. The paint was peeling off the old timber window frames, but it was built to last and withstood the limited ferocity of the Kentish climate.
I don't remember whether the vine was trained through a gap in the wall, but I remember the feeling of stepping inside, being struck by the warmth, humidity and musty smell, looking up at the meandering foliage and getting excited by the dark plump fruits hanging in long trailing bunches high above me.
My grandparents would pick them when they were ripe enough and bring them inside, where we would carefully slice them in half with the blade of a knife, and then prick out the pips from the middle with the tip. We would end up with a bowl full of half grapes, all with a small divot in the middle where the seeds had been, surrounded by translucent jelly-like flesh and all held in place by the firm skin.
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| Grapes - home grown and fresh from the pergola! |
Something special
I'm fairly sure you could buy fresh grapes from the shops in early 1980s Britain, but to me at the time they were an exotic treat. I didn't know anyone else who had their own grape vine. But however commonplace they may be in our glasshouse and air freight modern times, picking each grape to eat one by one from a bunch remains an experience with a sense of decadence. And even more satisfying if they're from your own garden.
35 years on from my grandparents greenhouse, I have my own grapevine. It's planted in the border and is trained over a pergola. It's not protected by a greenhouse but it has grown very well. Last year it produced more than sixty bunches of grapes, which I thinned to no more than one per spur. I also removed as many of the smaller fruits from each remaining bunch as I could, so that the larger ones left could grow as big as possible by the time they were picked.
Last year the grapes I picked from my own vine are much smaller than those from my childhood. Any attempt to halve them and remove the pips would leave very little edible grape afterwards. They were edible and ripened sufficiently to be sweet enough to enjoy as dessert grapes. But I was curious to know what else I might be able to do with them.
How about making your own wine?
That would be good. My mother used to make wine from elderberries; demi-johns bubbling away slowly on top of the boiler in the kitchen. It would be interesting to see if my grapes could be turned into wine.
It's possible I suppose, there are vineyards in Wales you know. In fact less than a hundred yards away from my pergola, on what is now a golf course, the Marquis of Bute, then the richest man on the planet, planted a vineyard on the south facing slope below Castell Coch, in 1875.
It apparently went well for a few years and produced some drinkable results, reportedly making it the first ever commercial vineyard in Britain. This was seemingly battling the local climate though. Additional sugar was always needed to achieve the necessary fermentation, and shortages brought about by the first world war put an end to the venture. So what chance me producing something drinkable from my vine?
I picked 14 bunches. They weighed in at 460g, or just over a pound if you are an imperialist. I picked them all and put them in a sieve, mashed them up over a glass bowl and ended up with about 1/4 litre of juice.
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| Grapes + Masher = Juice! |
Although this tasted pretty good, my single vine will yield at most another 40 bunches, and produce maybe a whole litre in total. Little more than a single bottle of wine. It would be fun to do, but not really worth the effort.
Similarly the juice itself was nice but hardly worth the arduous task of cleaning the remains of the grape skins from the sieve afterwards. I was tempted to use the whole lot to make my own balsamic vinegar until I realised this takes even longer to make than wine.
Similarly the juice itself was nice but hardly worth the arduous task of cleaning the remains of the grape skins from the sieve afterwards. I was tempted to use the whole lot to make my own balsamic vinegar until I realised this takes even longer to make than wine.
If you must
Then I came across recipes for grape must syrup which intrigued me. Ancient Greek and Roman cooks often used it in place of honey and sugar to sweeten puddings, I read. This also could be interesting to try. However it involves reducing the grape must by three quarters and so again I concluded my hard work would be rewarded with a tiny outcome.
Pruning a grapevine is key to a good harvest
Instead, I was determined this year to be more ruthless in pruning my vine. I removed more bunches, leaving no more than thirty to ripen. I also thinned those bunches even more ruthlessly in order to get fewer but larger grapes that will be easier and more rewarding to simply eat.
Whilst I can dream of making my own wine, or even syrup, surely the most satisfying way to enjoy your own home grown grapes is to simply pick them straight from the vine and eat them.
It worked well this year, to an extent. I ended up with about 30 bunches of mainly good sized grapes. I enjoyed eating quite a few of them, but I also found a fabulous way to use the surplus.
After eating as many as I felt like doing, and giving a few bunches away, I decided to make grape sorbet with the rest. As my grapes are not seedless, I pureed and sieved them as above, then added some sugar syrup I made by heating caster sugar in water until dissolved, and then churned the sorbet in an ice cream machine before freezing.
There are some equally simple recipes here:
James Wong's Grape Sorbet
Healthier Black Grape Sorbet
The result was delicious and definitely something I will be trying again, even the children enjoyed it!
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| Home made grape sorbet - mmmmmm! |
Do you have just one vine like me, or more? What are you doing with your grapes?
one year i harvested the grapes and a farmer friend made a clear almost colourless jelly with them. the next year i wanted to preserve the dark blue colour and i made grape jam. it turned out very well and it was delicious.
ReplyDeleteGrape jam sounds awesome what a great idea. Might try that next time, as well as sorbet.
DeleteWe have one growing along a wood fence with bunches, I'll have to count. Thank you for the info. How many bunches off your vine now?!
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