The Lincoln Wine Producers Cooperative had its first harvest today. Activity began soon after dawn (9:15 ish). The wine harvest is typically a long hard day where the whole family gets involved. On this occasion, because it was our first and we were very much in learning mode, the sheilas kept away leaving the men to get on with it. We realised later that many hands make light work and that more people on the job would have been better. A lesson learned for 2027.
Pete arrived first and after the traditional welcoming brew we headed out to the vineyard to pic the grapes. Leaving a few bunches for the table we harvested around 15 Kg. Pete had brought with him another 2 or 3Kg. His grapes had been ready for a while and the birds had got most of them. Adie’s grapevine brought the total up to around 40Kg.
As you’d expect at a high grade wine producer we have pretty much all the equipment needed for the full production process although we still need to source a fair number of bottles. Today we sterilised the fruit crusher and the barrels we are using for the initial colouring process. We are after red wine where the grape juice needs time to be infused with the colour of the skins. The barrels are really a big plastic home brew bucket and a trug.
Separating the grapes from the stalks and discarding the bad ones took the best part of the morning, including a tea break when THG came back from the park run and stuck the kettle on. We eventually ended up with around 40Kg of crushed grapes with a great deal of juice already in the barrels. Quite pleasing. Still a long way to go. Tomorrow we add the sugar and then (if my memory serves me right) the yeast and we have another week or so in the barrels before the press.
All in all a good morning’s work. It’s a learning process and the team done good, as they say (somewhere where their master of the language is not as complete as it might be).
Some of you have expressed an interest in joining the Cooperative and I’ve noted that for future harvests. If you have a vineyard and want to participate let me know. One vine maketh a vineyard as far as I am concerned.