It would be very pretentious to talk about my vineyard — which in reality is but one giant Concord Grape vine ( with a 6″ diameter base) flowing continuously over a large arbor. However, I find them enjoyable… especially toward the end when I leave a few on the vine to ‘gewurtz’… to ripen fully and become wonderfully sweet.
This year I am debating whether or not to make wine or jelly and it depends on whether or not we snack on them along the way. The interesting thing is a basic batch of wine requires far less Concord Grapes than regular California grapes… many recipes start off with multiples of 6 pounds of Concord per 1 gallon of water… whereas most other grapes skip the water and use just 20 pounds of grapes.
One good thing may come out of this economy and that is more folks will have to learn to do things themselves… cook, raise their own food and make wine!
It’s not all that hard.
Roger Freberg