Winemaking Day.

Yesterday was winemaking day. The grapes are bought together for this year's white wine blend.

The grapes are whizzed in the food processor to break the skins then placed in the press.

The press is a good stainless steel one that does a pretty good job extracting the grape juice. The container you see holds ten litres so I estimate we have got around six liters of wine. enough for about eight bottles.

Sugar was added to bring the potential alcohol to about 12% by volume. A wine yeast was added also. Fermentation should be complete within ten days or so and the wine will be bottled, stored and begin being drunk around the time of next year's harvest.

Dornfelder Not.

I bought two vines labled as Dornfelder two years ago with the intention of replacing the Brant vine with Dornfelder.

But this plainly is not a Dornfelder - it's a white grape!

Of course it's a huge disappointment and one that has left a problem. Do I keep the unknown grape variety or replace it with true Dornfelder loosing the last two years and waiting another two or three years for fruiting to begin.

What a decision!

Brant - The End Of The Line

Because a blackbird found a way under the net that was protecting the Brant grapes I'm left with no grapes as it has eaten them all.

So now is the point when the vine has to be chopped down.

All that is left now is a stump. The stump will try to push shoots in the spring so they will still have to be dealt with.

Chardonnay Harvest.

Yesterday the Chardonnay grapes were finally picked bringing to a close the harvest for this year.

After sorting them for under ripe and spoilt grapes there are three pounds to add to the thirteen pounds of Phoenix and the few Madeleine Angevine grapes already picked.

This should produce six bottles of blended white wine. Quite good considering what a poor growing season we had this year.

The red grapes have been a write off. A blackbird got in under the net covering the Brant grapes, eating most of them while the Regent grapes are too few to even mention.