Monday, 25 October 2010

Old vines and dying leaves





Over the last few days I have harvested white and black grapes from six of the nine vines in my courtyard and garden. This years yield looks pretty good to me and the grapes have also had a few frosts on them which I am told improves the quality of the juice whether it is subsequently fermented or not. Unfortunately one vine, which grows around the outside loo at the end of the garden, ripened in late August and most of the grapes succumbed to birds and the myriad of flying insects around at that time. Of the remaining eight vines, five bear white grapes and the other three, black. I have no idea what varieties they are but the three whites I have harvested so far are smaller than the black varieties which are large and juicy - and good for eating too!

The three white varieties yielded a total of 70kgs of grapes and the three black varieties, from smaller vines, totalled 43kgs. After crushing and pressing, the juice from both white and black grapes is stored in a collection of 5, 6 and 10 litre plastic bottles which originally held my drinking water. Once the remaining two vines have been harvested, I will spend a day crushing and pressing the grapes and then the process of turning most of the juice into wine will begin. Some unfermented juice will be set aside for soft drinks for younger visitors. One thing I have noticed is that the juice from the white grapes is more "rose" in colour, as was the bottle of "Roandola 2009" I was given earlier this year by the previous owner of No 130 and which I had thought at the time was a mixture of white and black grapes.

In reality making my own wine doesn't make sense economically as the crusher and press cost over £195 yet I can buy a 5 litre flagon of palatable Italian red or white wine for just over £4. So the money I spent on equipment would buy me over 230 litres of wine! However, there is a certain satisfaction in making your own wine from produce you have grown, whether grapes or any other fruit or even flowers! And of course the equipment is there for next years crop - and the next and the next.....

Autumn has sort of arrived. We are still enjoying clear skies most days and the night time temperature is dropping below freezing. Most mornings there is a heavy frost on everything until about 9:30am. However, once the sun gets over the hill behind my house, the temperature rises quickly to the high teens and even low twenties - warm enough for me to work outside in shorts and T-shirt again!

Most of the trees in the valley and on the hills are deciduous and the colours in the bright sunlight are quite stunning. I have taken some photos, one of which is reproduced here, but the camera doesn't do justice to the brilliance of the yellows, oranges, coppers, reds, browns and silvers of the dying leaves. There is very little wind in the valley and the leaves have mostly stayed on the trees, only falling off one or two species such as the pear trees which line the road through the village.

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