One vine I have, unkempt. A vintner would scowl to see my unruly zinfandel, but it shades the rabbit on hot days and makes an arbor for the juncos. It reaches eight feet up and five across and it is preposterously heavy with fruit. I stood in one spot this morning and cut the bunches I could reach without moving: this evening, cleaned and separated, that made twelve pounds of ripe grapes. It also made about a pound of grapes unripe or too far gone. Zinfandel is notorious that way: raisins and green fruit two months from ripe in the same bunch.
I fed twelve pounds of grapes, a handful at a time, into the juicer we borrowed from Ron and Joe some years back. I really should offer to return it some day, or at least remind them we have it. A handful at a time and I screened the funnel with my fingers: the juicer shot grapeseeds back out the funnel at high velocity. I found a few afterward stuck to cabinet doors. Twelve pounds of fruit, two quarts of juice from the first run through the juicer, and a dozen earwigs removed at the last possible minute before being juiced. Some rescue: they went into the disposal.
Ron and Joe’s juicer is not designed for Zinfandel grapes. What juicer is? The high speed required to juice carrots and apples makes it less than ideal for juicy, slightly mucilaginous flesh like that of wine grapes, and no one sane grows a little Zin for juice anyway. The varietal is meant for wooden presses in quarter-ton lots at the least. Tonight, the juicer spit out Zinfandel pomace with a quarter of the juice still in it. I kept separate the juice from two presses: the first from the juicer, and the second from the pomace. I put the pomace into the chinois — has anyone written that before, ever? — and smashed it through. That press, about a quart of juice, was far more complex in flavor than the first run. A brown film of yeast bubbled atop it, growing.
A few years back I would have been tempted to bottle the juice, let it ferment, sip it timidly and then either share it with friends or use it to marinate a tri-tip, depending. It would have made two bottles, or three, and there is five times as much fruit still to be picked. I don’t drink now. The first press will become jelly. To the juice from the pomace I added a half cup of turbinado sugar and a dash of cinnamon, then broke off and washed a few green twigs of English lavender from Becky’s plant and tossed them in. It will steep in the refrigerator overnight, and the ice cream maker is chilling in the freezer.
No. Not even on The Food Network.
Have you done this before?—Made it into ice cream? I don’t see why it wouldn’t work, but I’m curious.
No, and I’m not doing it now. Making sorbet. Or if it’s really good, sherbet.
yummy!
Mmm.
Have you tried a food mill for a first press rather than the juicer? More work, but no grapeseed shrapnel.
D’oh.
There is not a subject in this essay I am intrinsically interested in. You made it all fascinating.
That sounds wonderful.
But haven’t you ever seen “I Love Lucy”?! You’re supposed to squish them with your feet, of course. (Hilarious results optional.)