Making Your Own Wine

The lush, tendrilling Grapevine has a long, rich history, steeped in magic, mystery, and most importantly…mouth watering fruits!

We all know about Bacchus’s love of wine, and it’s no secret that Dionysis was partial to a glass or two… but who knew us mere mortals could make delicious wine in the comfort of our own homes?

Each year, your Grapevine will produce a bounty of sweet, ruby-red berries ripe for harvesting. So if you would like to turn your lush crop into home-made wine, read on…

Firstly, you’ll need to extract the juice from your succulent, sun-ripened grapes! Blend and strain your fruity mixture - or go for the more hands-on (and slightly messier) approach. What we’re looking to end up with is a few cups of delicious juice!

After this step, you’ll need to dissolve your sugar. The general rule is: for every cup of juice you have, you should add a quarter cup of sugar so that your yeast will be able to ferment nicely.

This brings us on to the yeast - we’d recommend using champagne yeast as this particular strain tends to yield the quickest result and ferments a brew of up to 18% alcohol content!

Make sure your sweet juice mixture is at room temperature (leave to stand for a couple of hours in a warm part of the house) and then add your yeast - it does its best fermenting in an atmosphere between 21 - 30C.

The rule of thumb is to use 1 teaspoon yeast for every three litres juice you want to ferment.

Once the yeast has been added, plug your bottle with an air-lock to allow carbon dioxide to be expelled and keep nasties at bay. Now all there’s left to do is wait... You’ll notice small bubbles appear in your airlock - once these bubbles have disappeared (usually after about 2 weeks), this means your delicious, home-made wine is ready to sample. Cheers!

To view the Grapevine gift click here.