September Memories
It's past the middle of September and the grapes are already ripe. People have been picking them these past couple of weeks to make their own wine at home. We could hear our neighbors under their grape arbor this past weekend, talking and laughing as they picked the grapes. Though the grapes aren't for them, since they don't make wine. A relative has taken them. The big wineries have almost finished by now, but the local families are still starting to make their wine.
We don't make wine any more. My father is the only one who used to drink it, and now he can't drink more than a glass every other day. If a brother-in-law doesn't come to pick the grapes, the birds and the wasps will take care of them. Our variety doesn't make the best wine. It's called catalan, and I assume that's because after the philoxera decimated the local varieties at the begining of the twentieth century that variety was brought from Catalunya because it was resistent. We have mostly red catalan, though at the back of a low arbor, we have a vine of black catalan. Since they started to ripen we've been going with a basket to pick them. They're very sweet and juicy, just like the Concord grapes we used to buy at Boston's Haymarket on September Saturdays a long time ago.
When we used to make our own wine, it would take around a week to pick all the grapes, and go through the entire process until the barrels were filled to await the first drawing in November or December. After picking, the grapes would be taken to the winepress. My father would turn the press and then let the juice run out slowly. The bucket placed under the press would be emptied into a barrel. When all the juice possible was extracted from the grapes, my father would take apart the winepress, put the crushed seeds, peels, and stems into a plastic barrel and begin again with more grapes. Finally, when the last grape was pressed and the wine had made its first fermentation in the barrels, he would put the corks on the barrels and let it finish fermenting. The remains of the grapes in the plastic barrels would be put away until we went to the cañeiro to distill the orujo, generally some months later, in the winter. That's how we did it. Other families do it in different ways. Some put the grapes into barrels that have been stood on one end and then smash the grapes in them and let them start to ferment there before putting them in the wine press. Some, I think, add sugar. That's probably if the grapes they grow don't tend to have much natural alcohol after fermenting.
While I like a glass of good wine (ours was definitely not), I prefer to pick grapes to eat them. And memories of Boston autumn Saturdays come back, along with the hawkers' cries of "Four pounds for a buck!" or "The best fruit in town here!" And begging my mother to buy me some Concord grapes to taste the squirt of sweet purple juice that I tasted every September. When we finally cut down our grape arbors, I am going to keep that little corner with the rambling vine of blue-black grapes that bring back memories every year.
We don't make wine any more. My father is the only one who used to drink it, and now he can't drink more than a glass every other day. If a brother-in-law doesn't come to pick the grapes, the birds and the wasps will take care of them. Our variety doesn't make the best wine. It's called catalan, and I assume that's because after the philoxera decimated the local varieties at the begining of the twentieth century that variety was brought from Catalunya because it was resistent. We have mostly red catalan, though at the back of a low arbor, we have a vine of black catalan. Since they started to ripen we've been going with a basket to pick them. They're very sweet and juicy, just like the Concord grapes we used to buy at Boston's Haymarket on September Saturdays a long time ago.
When we used to make our own wine, it would take around a week to pick all the grapes, and go through the entire process until the barrels were filled to await the first drawing in November or December. After picking, the grapes would be taken to the winepress. My father would turn the press and then let the juice run out slowly. The bucket placed under the press would be emptied into a barrel. When all the juice possible was extracted from the grapes, my father would take apart the winepress, put the crushed seeds, peels, and stems into a plastic barrel and begin again with more grapes. Finally, when the last grape was pressed and the wine had made its first fermentation in the barrels, he would put the corks on the barrels and let it finish fermenting. The remains of the grapes in the plastic barrels would be put away until we went to the cañeiro to distill the orujo, generally some months later, in the winter. That's how we did it. Other families do it in different ways. Some put the grapes into barrels that have been stood on one end and then smash the grapes in them and let them start to ferment there before putting them in the wine press. Some, I think, add sugar. That's probably if the grapes they grow don't tend to have much natural alcohol after fermenting.
While I like a glass of good wine (ours was definitely not), I prefer to pick grapes to eat them. And memories of Boston autumn Saturdays come back, along with the hawkers' cries of "Four pounds for a buck!" or "The best fruit in town here!" And begging my mother to buy me some Concord grapes to taste the squirt of sweet purple juice that I tasted every September. When we finally cut down our grape arbors, I am going to keep that little corner with the rambling vine of blue-black grapes that bring back memories every year.
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