Grape Harvesting

J, Elle and I returned from a nice long weekend spent with my folks in Mashpee, MA (Cape Cod). We had excellent weather and really enjoyed spending their wedding anniversary with them.

We found ourselves at the annual Harvest Festival in Falmouth on Sunday. They had lots of entertainment, games, food and craft vendors. Elle wasn't feeling 100% so she was kind of clingy and grumpy. She would occasionally get into different things. The Toe Jam Puppet Band was her favorite! She went into the kids tent and danced and played while the band also played.
We've always wanted to see this band play so we were psyched.

Later that day Dad & I stayed up watching the Green Bay game and the Yankee's pull out a win. I enjoy relaxing and watching a game with him. Saturday night we watched the Bruins win. We used to watch hockey all the time together it brought back some great memories as a kid.

We got home around noon today. The rain had stopped and the sun tempted us with sunshine. I planned to harvest the grapes today. I DID! Took most of the day to do it all. Picking the fruit is easy. I filled a large wooden bucket and a cardboard box (case of wine) up with bunches of grapes. That took about an hour and a half.

From there I have to separate the grapes.... BY HAND!
I remove them from the stem (crush at the same time). Throw away the moldy, green, rotted and dead grapes from the bunch. I wore latex gloves this year. In past years this process has made my hands itch. I think it's from the grapes skins. I didn't weigh the grapes this year but there was a lot. I'm going to guess around 20 lbs.

I'm tossing the good grapes skins and all into a bucket that I've lined with a nylon bag. I don't want any thing in the bucket... everything goes in the bag. All this sorting is taking a long time. I had a few good speeds but then I'll come across a decent size spider that emerges from a bunch of grapes and I get all skived out and slow down. Spiders seem to like fruit for some reason. I like fruit not spiders.

I've completed filled the bucket up with grapes. Now I have to continue crushing and making the juice. To that I tie a knot in the bag to close it off so that none of the content falls out into the bucket. I want all my "pulp' to stay in the bag and the juice pure juice in my bucket. To crush I grab handfuls of grapes and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze.... you get the picture.

FYI. I DIDN'T NOT USE MY FEET. To that point I used latex gloves all day. If Elle was feeling better we would have let her stomp but she's still a little fussy.

To further make juice I squeeze and twist the bag of pulp. Ideally I'm trying to get about 8-10 gallons of juice. I'd be happy with that. This process takes awhile since I'm always finding uncrushed grapes as I squeeze. As I squeeze I can see that the neighborhood folk walking by the house are searching for grapes on the vine to pick and eat... BUZZ OFF! I've been tempted in past weeks to make a sign that they should be careful when eating the grapes not to eat any spiders. I doubt that would scare them off.

The juice is so red that the bag of pulp looks like it's soaked with blood and I've just lopped some one's head off and put it in the bucket. HA! Better of Red.

Now that I think I've finished squeezing I leave the bag of pulp in the bucket and seal the bucket with it's lid. I'll leave the bag in there for a few days and each night ring it out to try and squeeze more juice. The color is rich and red.

Before I seal it up I scoop out some juice for us to drink. It's amazing. Nothing has been added to it and it's the sweetest juice. It needs preservatives but a few sips won't hurt.

This is just the beginning of the process. I have preservatives to add to it and of course when it gets into it's secondary container I'll add the yeast! And that's where Mr. Wizard gets all worked up!

I'll be updating with more pictures and possible wine making labels. J created some artwork with Elle while I was harvesting that might be the wine label.

Night.