SURPRISE WINE

Surprise grape harvest at the knoll this week. A few years ago I propagated a whole bunch of Roger's Red "wild" California grape vines from a plant I had in Berkeley. They are incredibly vigorous growers and I knew they were up to the task of covering a giant old hoop house (the only existing structure on the land left by fire that destroyed the home before we bought it). I will do a post on the design and process of growing grapes over a twenty food structure in the future.

Although we are growing these vines completely dry farmed for shade and beauty, they produced a bumper crop of delicious if not seedy grapes this year.

Upon further reading I discovered that Roger's Red is actually a hybrid between native California grapes (Vitis californica) and European wine grapes (Vitis vinifera) Alicante Bouschet specifically ( although there is some debate on the varietal). I'm not expecting exceptional wine, but we harvested and crushed a good five gallons this weekend with immense joy. We will keep you posted on how the wild fermentation goes. The grape juice is delicious, stone fruity and huckleberry molasses tastings although I'm concerned about the high sugar content as some of the grapes were starting to raise up.

All in all, such a fun project and the first real harvest on the knoll although we have prickly Pear "Tuna" and olives for later this fall.