OT: Home Made Wine....

essex-commuter

Does anyone make their own?

Really fancy having a go, is it worth it? Thinking about asking for a 'starter kit' for Christmas!

rubertoe

Can you grow grapes?

essex-commuter

rubertoe wrote:

Can you grow grapes?

I have no idea.

rubertoe

essex-commuter wrote:

rubertoe wrote:

Can you grow grapes?

I have no idea.

Is growing grapes even a requirement (I assume not and you can get pr-pressed grapes?)?

I know a guy who brews his own beer succesfully from "kit" and it is very good. I assume the process is pretty similar.

ballysmate

rubertoe wrote:

Can you grow grapes?

If you do manage to grow a bunch of grapes, this could be the answer.

Gallywomack

A couple of years ago I saw a segment on something like a Hugh Fairly-Longname programme, or maybe Gordon Ramsey's 'the F-Word', in which a guy had cultivated his own Pinot Noir grapes in his back garden in South London. They did a blind tasting of the wine he made from them against some top commercial Pinots and it scored very favourably.

He seemed to have just grown the vines on a trellis thingy over his patio.

Edit: when I was growing up we used to have a big vine that yielded lots of little black grapes in my back garden in Catford, but I've got no idea if they'd have been suitable for wine-making. They were tasty to eat.

tetley10

My old man used to make his own wine. He used to have containers of the stuff stuck in the airing cupboard for months. This is a while ago, surely techniques must have moved on by now.

tgotb

I have hundreds of bunches of grapes hanging from the pergola above my patio. Absolutely no idea what variety they are; any idea how I can tell whether they're any good for wine-making, without investing loads of effort into actually making wine that might turn out to be rubbish?

asprilla

TGOTB wrote:

I have hundreds of bunches of grapes hanging from the pergola above my patio. Absolutely no idea what variety they are; any idea how I can tell whether they're any good for wine-making, without investing loads of effort into actually making wine that might turn out to be rubbish?

Snap.

Guy at work was telling me about a South london wine collective that will come round, harvest your grapes if suitable and you'l get a few of the resulting bottles for your trouble.

I've not looked into it in detail yet, but it sounds like the way to go.

Sketchley

TGOTB wrote:

I have hundreds of bunches of grapes hanging from the pergola above my patio. Absolutely no idea what variety they are; any idea how I can tell whether they're any good for wine-making, without investing loads of effort into actually making wine that might turn out to be rubbish?

Wine grapes, when ripe, will be much sweater, softer and have more pips than typical "table" grapes for eating which will in turn be firmer, crunchy, no where near as sweat and also bouncy so they travel better. You be hard pushed to identify variety by taste though, instead things like leaf colour and shape, grape size and colour etc. Even then it won't be straight forward. Best option is to make some wine and taste it then decide if you like it or not.

cyclingprop

only worth doing if the product is not "red red" in colour.

daviesee

Tetley10 wrote:

My old man used to make his own wine. He used to have containers of the stuff stuck in the airing cupboard for months. This is a while ago, surely techniques must have moved on by now.

Never been to a winery then?

Centuries old technique.

memsley89

My only experience of home brew was in desperation in my last year of university...
We had some successful batches, and some we prefer not to talk about.

ugo.santalucia

My grandfather used to have a vineyard in Italy and make his own wine: pressed grapes, fermentation and all as it should be... it was atrocious.
My brother in law in Canada used to make his own wine from mixing the powders... it was bad beyond belief. Do yourself a favour and don't even go that route. If you are short of cash, drink the 2.99 stuff or the wine in the tetrapack containers, much better than anything you can do yourself.
Beer kits on the other hand...

Mikey23

Used to for years, both wine using hedgerow stuff and beer using kits. My favourites were elderflowers and berries and damsons. Excellent results and although it takes a while you can keep a steady supply going. Missus just had to get used to the airing cupboard being filled with demijohns and beer buckets...

Mikey23

My guide book was by mrs tritton. It seems to be still available on amazon. Quite an old fashioned book but cracking information and great recipes

andyh01

Be hard pushed to make decent wine from home grown or hedgerow grapes best way is a wine kit where the hard work has been done and you have the grape juice that just needs to fermented. I homebrew beer from crushed grain rather than kit beer. For resource have a look at Jim's home brew website and/or the homebrew forum. The wine starter kits are expensive but you get aprox 40 bottles for about £20~£40

andyh01

Be hard pushed to make decent wine from home grown or hedgerow grapes best way is a wine kit where the hard work has been done and you have the grape juice that just needs to fermented. I homebrew beer from crushed grain rather than kit beer. For resource have a look at Jim's home brew website and/or the homebrew forum. The wine starter kits are expensive but you get aprox 40 bottles for about £20~£40

itboffin

We planted a vine about 2-3 years ago and after the snowy winters we've had i was certain it was dead, but oh no this year it went mad and spread up the trellis, over the fence into next door and over the shed roof. Hundreds of bunches of large pea sized red grapes, we havent tried wine yet but we did make some into some damn good tart grape juice.

The rest went to the chickens who also seemed pretty happy/mental for them.

I've going to plant some hops the other side of the garden next year.

Gallywomack

Ha, there's a coincidence - the very River Cottage episode I mentioned earlier is on Good Food (Sky ch 247) tonight at 9pm. Have a watch for some inspiration.

Gallywomack

Here's the guy's blog:
http://urbanwinegrower.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/tramping-and-tasting-the-pinot-noir/

Drfabulous0

Hmmm, I have made hooch before, that came out alright, but wine doesn't seem worth the effort.

davmaggs

There are various urban wine projects in London where people pool all their garden grapes and it gets made into wine. Having re-looked at that blog posted above, they are part of a collective