Now that the sun has plummeted below the horizon for the winter, the garden is getting pretty much no sun at all. But the last weak rays of this astonishing long hot summer ripened my grapes. So I went out into it this evening to pick them.
It is far too late, in the year, in the day. I listen to Radio 6, Amy Lamé, cold fingers stumbling over the grapes. Occasionally, uncertain about a bunch, I sample one. The skins are very hard, and inside the juice is already on the turn, a light prickle of alcohol like a soft promise. I cut them down to small bunches, scissors and snips, trying to avoid my fingers, mostly succeeding, shaking them to dislodge pests as I go, leaving the small seedless sub-grapes I should have trimmed off months ago to plump the large grapes where they are good. I call them pearls - they have an exquisite, light taste. The bad ones into a discard bucket, the frost-splintered, the fly-punctures, the pears with problems.
Whenever they get to ripe, I make wine. I call it after the most numerous pest I find on my wine. This year's vintage, 2018, will be "Wandering Woodlouse". I don't know how well it will do. It's late.
It gets too dark to continue before I run out of vine, but only the far end is left, where the bunches always go first and anyway the foxes and blackbirds and hedgehogs can tidy up the last bunches for me (one is half-stripped already) hopefully without getting so drunk they get into trouble. I leave it, I have two carrier bags and two carrier bags of grapes is enough to make wine of.
My arms ache from the cold of autumn. But the juice seeping out of the bottom of the bags has a hint of promise.
It is far too late, in the year, in the day. I listen to Radio 6, Amy Lamé, cold fingers stumbling over the grapes. Occasionally, uncertain about a bunch, I sample one. The skins are very hard, and inside the juice is already on the turn, a light prickle of alcohol like a soft promise. I cut them down to small bunches, scissors and snips, trying to avoid my fingers, mostly succeeding, shaking them to dislodge pests as I go, leaving the small seedless sub-grapes I should have trimmed off months ago to plump the large grapes where they are good. I call them pearls - they have an exquisite, light taste. The bad ones into a discard bucket, the frost-splintered, the fly-punctures, the pears with problems.
Whenever they get to ripe, I make wine. I call it after the most numerous pest I find on my wine. This year's vintage, 2018, will be "Wandering Woodlouse". I don't know how well it will do. It's late.
It gets too dark to continue before I run out of vine, but only the far end is left, where the bunches always go first and anyway the foxes and blackbirds and hedgehogs can tidy up the last bunches for me (one is half-stripped already) hopefully without getting so drunk they get into trouble. I leave it, I have two carrier bags and two carrier bags of grapes is enough to make wine of.
My arms ache from the cold of autumn. But the juice seeping out of the bottom of the bags has a hint of promise.
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