The State of the Grape

Do you ever notice how one idea will lead to another?  This one is comes from the previous post.  “The State of the Grape” will be a monthly post with an update on the family muscadine grape vine.  Maybe boring, but fun for me and since I might be the only one reading this…it’s all about what I want to write/read.

yes there is a vine in there

Well as you can tell from this picture there seems to be 2 stray trees trying to grow up through the middle of the vine.  Paul is going to be taking care of that in the next week or so.  I love trees but these have to go. 

As far as the vine is concerned, it looks to be doing very well.  It's running all down the fence up all over the structure that the neighbors put up for it. 

I guess all I can say about it now is that it is dormant for winter and will be coming back to life in the spring.









 

If I had only shown this image, you might never have known the true state of the vine but then I would be acting like a politician.  I felt that the whole truth was best. 

Hopefully next month the trees will be gone and we can see the entire vine.

ideas and innovations

It’s all about ideas and innovations.  But without time and money it seems that these two things are a bit harder to achieve.  Maybe not the ideas.  Those are the free part.  The hard part is the innovation which takes experimentation which is where the funds are needed.  Time is another challenge.  With a full time job to support the funds needed for the experimentation/innovations time for the experimentation/innovations is limited.  Thus I wait.  I do the small things that build up to the big things.  I outline.  I keep notes.  I plan (in my head, thus the need for the note taking.)  I research.  I wait.  
Speaking of waiting, I can’t wait for my parent’s muscadine grape vine to produce grapes this year.  I used to eat the grapes from this vine as a kid.  It is over 30 years old.  It wasn’t tended to properly as a grape vine, just allowed to do it’s natural meandering up and down a chain link fence.  I never really thought much about the vine as a kid, it was just always there.  I never even conceived of making wine from it.  It wasn’t until around 2000 when I took a trip to the Lakeridge Winery did I even think about this grape as anything other than just a vine in my backyard that I ate grapes from.  So now that I’m making mead, I’m excited to pair the grapes with the mead in what is called pyment.  Here’s my dilemma.  I tend to fuss with things and I’m having a really hard time not fussing with the vine.  I know nothing about viniculture.  If I start messing with it I’m afraid I’ll kill it or ruin it.  I keep telling myself to just leave it alone.  It has been there for over 30 years without my intervention, it doesn’t need me now.  Let me tell you, I’m so very excited.  Can’t ya tell?  I feel like I found a hidden treasure in an attic only this one is in a backyard.  Back to the ideas.  One idea (depending on the yield) is to do two versions of muscadine pyment.  1 using some grapes at the peak of ripeness (not a proper phrase I’m sure), and 1 using grapes that are a little past peak.  I’m wondering if like some dessert wine which use grapes that are overripe because of the concentration of sugars, I wonder if using these in mead will have the same effect.  With ideas come concerns.  I’m debating with myself over the juicing options.  Three options that I can think of.  Two of which are very similar.  First, putting the grapes threw the juicer.  Second, mashing up the grapes.  Third, mashing the grapes and then boiling.  I’m a little concerned with the boiling thing, I don’t boil anything in my mead so I just don’t want to go that route.  Idea juice or Idea mash?  Keeping in mind that I will have limited supply of grapes so I have to decide one way or the other.  
I could go on and on but I'm tired and will not bore you any longer.


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image is sweeter than me

I've been trying to write this post for 2 days now.  I don't know why it is so hard for me to write.  I'm almost considering just not posting but I think that I really need to tackle this challenge.  I'm trying to address the misconceptions about mead.  I want to address the renaissance fair, hippy, sweet wine image of mead. 
Here's the thing.  Contrary to what most wine and beer lovers would like to believe most evidence shows that mead was the first fermented beverage.  Sorry, but it's true. 

And another thing, mead does not have to be sweet.  Just like wine it can be syrupy sweet or dirt dry.  Did ya know that?

Also, it's not just for ren fairs and hippys.  Although fun to have at ren fairs, it can be just as sophisticated and refined as wine.

So, here's is the thing.  Because as I've said before I have a tendency to have these grand ideas.  You know the one where I own a meadery and make award winning meads.  You know that one. **ahem**   Well, I've been thinking that to get to that point I'm going to need to change opinions and misconceptions about mead.  Not only make a tasty product and a variety of products but change the preconceived ideas about mead.  Would I be up to this challenge?  I think so.  I like to educate people.  Of course this means I need to make sure to thoroughly educate myself.   Speaking of, here is an interesting little article Mead, drink of vikings, comes out of dark ages just written in December. 

Let's see, where to go from here.  Yes, I will be trying to educate myself and others about mead, but also I would like to change up some standard mead techniques.  There are several things that are done as a standard way of brewing, but I would like to switch it up.  I've got ideas.  I've got no one to tell me "no" so we will see what happens. 

I can only find one thing wrong with everything meadery...it takes at least 9 months for mead to be ready to drink.  Even then, waiting a year would be even better.  Geesssh, I hate to wait. 

Oh, I think what I'm going to try to do this week is draw and color my own label.  We'll see what happens with that.

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Welcome to 2011

Sitting here and thinking about what to write about for my first post in 2011.  Do I reflect on 2010?  Do I write about my wishes for 2011?  Do I list out a bunch of resolutions for 2011?  So much pressure to write a thought provoking insightful post on the first day of the year.  This might be more pressure than I can handle as I've only had 4 hours of sleep.  

So I'm going to share what I've been thinking about all day.  The future.  My plans and hopes for the future. 

I'll start with family and friends.  I think my biggest hope for the coming year is to make more time for family and friends.  Although it's hard when I think of how busy we are with Nugget.  But, with every challenge there is a solution.  I also hope to work on myself as it relates to family and friends.  Try not to be as quick to judge and put up shields.  I had a reason and I had circumstances that brought me to this point.  Mainly it was a form of preventing hurt and protecting myself.  This has resulted in people not know who I am.  They know who I want them to know.  The parts of me I want to people to know.  It's not about lying, it's about keeping my shields up.  Aside from that I hope to be able to build loving, supportive, and compassionate relationships that I've avoided up to now. 

I've also thought a lot today about things I like to do.  Photography.  Mead making.  Cooking.  Reading.  Knitting.  How do I work these things into my life while not taking away from anything else.  For instance, how do I make it out to the Photography club meeting without taking about from Nugget's bedtime (which I've missed twice since he has been born).  This is when I have to ask myself, "is it really going to hurt Nuggy to miss 1, 2, even 3 bedtimes in a month"?  Really?  As much as it pains me to say...it's not going to hurt him.  It may hurt me, but not him.  And to knit, brew up some mead or cook doesn't take time away from Nuggy especially when he is playing within eyesight.  Now that he plays a lot more one his own.

I've also been thinking a lot about money today.  Who wants to think about these things on the first day of the year?  Nobody, but I did.  Without going too much into is personal subject, my hope is to have a sizable savings by this time next year.  

Okay enough with this retrospective introspective gobblely gook and on to the fun of 2010.  Making plans for 2 vacations this year.  1 for sure, 2nd is a possibility.  Really looking forward to these.  Also looking forward to finishing my family cookbook.  Also excited about Nuggy's first birthday and all that this year has to bring as it relates to him.   

And one final note.  I look forward to sharing the year to come here.  I hope we can start conversations.  I hope we can get to know each other through this meeting place. 

my future's so bright...

Happy 2011

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walk before you crawl

Turn back now if you think this is about Nuggy.  It's not.  It's about me.  Be forewarned. 

Bottles.  Labels.  Carboys.  Tastings.  Corks.  See how I walk before I crawl.  The first jug of mead hasn’t even finished its primary fermentation and I already have dreams of a brand of mead that I can take to tastings and competitions and even sell.  Oh and then I’ll start a meadery…see how I get.   I’m already designing a label and thinking of names and slogans.  It’s all laid out in my head.  Why? I’ve wanted to own my own company for a long long time.  I think I’m just predestined to be a small business owner.  My first grand plan was to open a gourmet dog cookie shop.  I know, you don’t have to say anything.  Next was to own a small yarn shop.  Then I did have a small business.  “1,000 Petals” is my yarn/fiber dying company.  This has fallen to the wayside since becoming pregnant and having a baby.  Although I did love the creative process of color combos it was so time consuming to produce such a small inventory.  I’ve also had numerous ideas along the way, too many to name or even remember.  

Now…Mead.  Out of all the different forms of wine I’ve tried mead is my favorite.  Well, this and Ice Wine.  Side note: Mead is a wine made primarily from honey, water, and yeast.  From my initial research I believe that the upstart $$ for this hobby is fairly inexpensive.  As a matter of fact what should be the first 4 bottles cost under $20 to produce.  Can’t beat that.  I’ve already found a local raw honey producer.  Now, a bit of practicality, this will probably never be anything more than a hobby which is perfectly satisfying to me.  I think some bottles of mead made by hand will make nice gifts.   But does it really hurt to dream and plan for something that might happen.  And to be honest, if I really want this to happen I will make it happen.  So here are some of my big business ideas. 

I want this to be fun.  Thus the name: Bad Ass Hive Mead.  Slogan: “My honey can kick your honey’s ass”.  I’m hoping a friend of mine can come up with some art for this idea.  He does some really cool robot type stuff and I think it would be interesting to see what he could do with this idea. 

Aside from the fun design and conceptual stuff, I have some experimenting to do.  Mead, like wine, can be dry or sweet depending on several variances.  One of these variances is the type of yeast.  First experiment will be with 4 different yeast.  I’m also going to experiment with fruits, making the mead a “Melomel”.  Melomel is defined as mead fermented with fruit added to the honey during primary fermentation. 

Now, most people know that I’m pretty impatient.  You didn’t really think I could wait a year before having the first glass of mead.  Thank god for short or quick meads.  These can be ready in a matter of a few weeks.  They are not going to be anything special or spectacular, I know this.  But they will be homemead.  Get it…homemead instead of homemade? 

need a topic

Oh how the days fly by.  Nuggy is within days of being 8 months old.  8 months.  It's hard to believe.  He has become such a character.  If I didn't know any better I would think he was trying to come up with ways to get in trouble.  You can see it in his eyes. 

see what i mean



Wow, so many things have been going one around here that I'm having a hard time organizing my thoughts.  Let's see, we got our family pics taken. 

Aren't we cute!

Let's see, what else has happened?  Oh...floor in the kitchen is finished.  Yay!  I'm so proud of how much we've (mainly Paul) have done in this house.  I'll have to get pics later. 

Ummm, I think the newest in new is the mead.  If you've known me for any period of time, you know that I always have some sort of new hobby, or better yet new obsession.  Now it's mead, also known as honey wine.  It's a wine made from fermenting honey.  Yummy!  I'm starting with a small scale experiment with 1 gallon of 3 different varieties. 



we have fermentation

I would also like to make some melomel which is honey mead with fruit.  Plans are to make a pomegranate, pear, and raspberry melomel.  Paul also is going to make his beer from a beer kit I got for him a few years ago.  I don't like beer but I'm looking forward to at least tasting it.  My hope is that I'll have lots of mead to go around for gifts next year. 

I'll right I can't think of anything else right now. I really need to post more often so that this doesn't happen again. 

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