Making Wine, part 1

It is time to harvest the grapes and begin making the wine here at the Old Mission Vineyard. We all helped out by picking the grapes.

We filled two of these each time we picked grapes and I believe that we went to pick four times.
Picking in the vineyard.
Sometimes we found some cute surprises in with the grapes. I tried to pick this little guy--who expects a frog in with the grapes? We did shake the wire the vines are on each time to encourage any wasps to leave before we picked.
Braeden picking. You can see how many grapes there were, it was easy picking, just hot.
The grapes are muscadine grapes with a thick skin so they are tolerant of the Florida heat.
We cleaned and sterilized the "primary fermentation device", otherwise known as a six gallon bucket, and the grinder before starting this part of the process. Before we ground we would pick out and leaves that got in and most of the stems. Some stems stayed and they will come out when we press the skins.
Many, many grapes. It takes two of these to fill a six gallon bucket once they are ground. Each filled bucket will make about 30 bottles of wine.
Grinding by hand.
We ground each batch twice, so here Jeff and Braeden are pouring it in for a second grinding.
Grinding away. You could hear the grapes pop which was neat.



Bill, Bessie, and Butch (Bessie's brother) came out to see us and experience a little wine making. They helped pick, helped grind, tasted some of last year's wine, and went to lunch. It was so much fun to see them!

We will need to monitor the wine for the next couple of weeks, adding sugar in a couple of days to help the fermenting process. In November we should be bottling it.