About a month ago, I was out on the driveway watching the twins ride their bikes when Uncle Carmen, our next-door neighbor, popped out from under the grapevines in the backyard and began walking toward us, wagon behind him. Right away I knew...it was time to make the wine.
J & Z ran right over to meet him. Uncle C explained that this year was tough on his grapes - and not because of the weather - but more because of all the animals that have come to visit this summer. Our backyards abut a strip of woods and we often get coyotes, foxes, wild turkeys, geese, deer, raccoons, rabbits - and lots of birds. Apparently the turkeys really love fruit and thusly, his crop was a bit diminished. But the winemaking must go on (every autumn he bottles enough wine to last a year), and so he went to Chelsea and bought crates of the most luscious, sweet, juicy grapes .
Yeah, we liked those until we saw the purples ones in the garage. The boys dove right in and we enjoyed the sweetest, most delicious fruit I've had in recent memory. Seriously? These little globes were packed tightly on the bunch - the sweetness exploded in your mouth and their texture was like satin. I couldn't stop eating them.
And neither could they.
Uncle Carmen has a couple of bottles with our name on it over in his garage...I can't wait until they're ready. In the meantime, I'm tending my own little vineyard that we started this year and trying to figure out how or if we can grow anything nearly as good. My plants are far too young right now (we harvested 2 grapes!) but next year should be telling. In the meantime, we'll just go next door for our fix.
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