Grow Your Own Magazine

We have been experimenting with growing several different types of vines over the past years, and have now established a fairly fruitful mini-vineyard - would appreciate some advice on how to deal with the crop to produce something drinkable tho. Despite the chickens stripping fruit from lower branches when our backs were turned, we currently have several demijohns of a fairly unappetising looking red liquid littering up the utility room. They don't look terribly inviting!

Give them time. One of the best ones I ever made (elder & blackberry) had a bouquet like a cats litter tray at first. But after a year it was stunning - till my mum threw it away because there was fluff on the outside f the demijohn

Hi francophile and other home wine makers. It should not prove a problem to make a drinkable wine from grapes or for that matter almost anything else. I once brewed with porrige oats, sugar beet and gorse flowers, it was exceptional. How are you obtaining the juice? keep everthing very clean, I use cheap bleach and then wash well. Racking the wine, 'taking the juice and leaving the sediment' prevents tastes and smells of cat litter trays which is due to the wine sitting on a layer of dead yeast. So rack it! Baking yeast is not ideal and most fruit requires the addittion of tannin which is in grape juice, but you can use tea.
Have fun and drink sensiblyyy...

Hi ! francophile your vines should be starting to produce some tiny grapes about now. Did you manage to do anything with the jars of red liquid???
How do you intend to extract the juice from the grapes? Do you have red or white and what colour wine do you wish to make? You can make white wine from red grapes.