I’d count myself as quite a brewing veteran. I’ve done a lot of beer, mainly starting with the grain, and a fair number of batches of cider but I’ve never attempted wine. I’m not so interested in kits and I’ve never had a sufficient supply of fresh grapes. That is until this weekend when we were kindly given three large trays of them.

Today I’ve plucked the grapes from the stems, removing the ones that had gone too far, and mashed them down using enough heat to pasteurise them before straining out the juice. That took quite a while and was somewhat messy but I got a decent amount of juice. Taking note from recent cider batches, I barely used any additional water and the result was juice with an initial gravity of 1.056 (adjusting for temperature), which I think is enough to try on its own. I’ve set it going in a couple of demijohns with just over 2l in each in case initial fermentation is very active. If it doesn’t kick off overnight, then I can always add some sugar but I’m keen to see what the fruit alone can achieve.