How to make wild grape juice
Wild grapes grow along the
roadsides in Capay Valley, California. Here's my favorite way of
using them: squishing them into juice.
1. Wash and put the grapes
into a large ziplock bag. Seal the bag, removing as much air as
possible.
2. Squeeze the grapes with
your feet or fingers. Pop all the grapes. This is a very pleasant
sensual experience!
3. Pour the grapes pulp into a
strainer and press with the back of a spoon, catching the juice into a
bowl.
4. Do not heat the juice!
Heating it removes much of the delicious flavor. You can strain it
further, but I don't.
5. Refrigerate or freeze the
juice. If you allow the juice to stand at room temperature for a day or
so before refrigerating it, you will get some natural carbonation from
the yeast on the grape skins. I like this.
I get rave reviews from friends
about the freshness of this juice and I serve it at my B&B, Cache Creek Inn.
In
addition to running Cache Creek Inn, Camilla Barry and her husband
invented the visual protractor shown here, which they describe as
"the world's easiest protractor --- anyone can use it!"
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Eric --- I'll be curious to hear how wild Japanese grape juice tastes.
Braddock --- This does sound like a relatively easy method if you've just got a small harvest.