grape stomping

OK, let's hop off this self-rediscovery train for a bit and come and visit our place on a sunny Sunday afternoon in March. The grapes on the back deck are swollen and juicy and if we don't pick them today, the birds will beat us to it.

Let's pick bunch after bunch after bunch. We can use scissors or just snap the vines off with our hands. You go up the ladder and pass them down to me and I'll fill the bucket and after a while we can swap. Let's sing and laugh as the grapes explode in our hands and the juice runs down our arms. The grapes are warm, the day is filled with sunshine, life is gorgeous.
When we've filled our buckets it's  time for the fun part! Let's tip all those gorgeous grapes into a cut off drum, stalks and all. Let's hose off our feet and jump right in. Let's stomp on all those grapes and make juice baby!
After we've all taken turns stomping and the grapes are feeling squooshed, it's time to strain the juice out. If you reach down into the barrel and get a cup full, I'll pour it through the strainer and into the saucepan.
Yep, it's thirsty work this grape juice making. We're almost there now, have a drink, hose off your legs, feed the scraps to the chooks and let's go inside and bottle it up. We're not really wine drinkers in our house, so we'll pop these bottles up on the shelf for now and bring them down as we need them for icy poles, fruit leathers, vodka cocktails and cordial.

It's delicious don't you think? the perfect mix of sweet with a little hint of sour. Yum!

Thanks so much for your help, it's been such great autumn fun.

See you next week for tomato squooshing?

Big autumn love!

xx