So it has been nine months already since my lovely friend Janet passed away. She was full of life, bubbly, warm and accepting of so many people. Two weeks ago we visited her mom, Joyce, and came away with three boxes of pinot blanc grapes. These little lovelies went into a grape press we rented from a local u-brew wine shop in Duncan.
Pressing hard overnight we got about 15l of grape juice and put it into a primary fermenter, with any skins that escaped the press, added a packet of champagne yeast and let sit for two week (oops, should have been a week but the health care we have been doing around here meant that we just didn't get to it). Yesterday evening, we siphoned it out of the primary into a 5us gal. carboy (secondary fermenter with a fermentation lock).
We tasted the juice as it siphoned into the secondary and found it quite tart. Forgot all about testing its specific gravity and hope it will be a forgiving little wine and ferment nicely without us adding any sugar.
It is now sitting quietly next to the fireplace now, starting to clear and bubble slowly. It reminds me of a lovely Victorian novel and think Janet would think so too. As the nights grow darker and we are sitting in front of the fire more, it will be lovely to have something that reminds me of her bubbly laughter.
