Better

Last year my grape harvest was sunk without trace. Lots of grapes formed but when they needed sunshine all they got was rain and the brief, late, dry spell at the end of the summer was too little too late. They ripened but were on the small side. I set an afternoon aside to go and harvest them but when I arrived with my scissors and large plastic tub I found that the birds had beaten me to it and the vines were bare. 2012 was not a vintage year, unless you were a bird.

Apart from losing one of my vines in the standing water which did not drain away over the winter, this year has been very much better. We avoided the late frost which has set me back in previous years and we have had a decent amount of the right sort of weather at the right times, albeit everything has been running a couple of weeks late. Saturday was a very warm and sunny September day and so I decided to let the grapes bask in the sun for one more day before picking them on Sunday.

On Sunday afternoon I set about picking the grapes. There were plenty of large, fat, juicy bunches. As I Snipped away and pondered The Meaning of Life the immortal words of Monty Python's Mr Creosote came to mind, "Better get a (bigger) bucket".

I spent Sunday evening pressing grapes by hand. I need to add a fruit-press to my wish-list before next autumn. After about three hours I had hand-squeezed four and a half gallons of juice from the grapes. I have been left with two purple-stained hands. I have scrubbed and scrubbed them but, 24 hours later, they remain claret-tinged.

I sprinkled some crushed campden tablets into the grape juice and then left the must overnight. Tonight I have measured the specific gravity and added 2kg of sugar. I then added a sachet of wine yeast to the mix along with some yeast nutrient and now I'm waiting for the sugar to turn to alcohol. Next weekend, or maybe next week I will transfer the must into air-locked demi-johns. There are still plenty of bunches of grapes still on the vines. If I get chance I will pick them and set off a second batch of wine.

By the way, please let me know if you want to use any of my photos. I have noticed that my earlier "bud-burst" photo has turned up on a number of`commercial websites around the world, copied without my permission and not credited to me.