In Klara's courtyard, she has three kinds of grapes growing: green grapes, a reddish grape, and a dark blue/purple grape which here they call "black" grapes. Today we were picking both the green and the black grapes, using them together. I think the result will be some kind of "Rose" wine. The red grapes will not be picked until after the first good frost. I don't know how or why, but the frost is supposed to increase the sugar content of the red grapes.
After the grapes are picked, they are placed in a hopper, and fed into a crushing device. This device doesn't exactly "crush" the grapes so much as "break" the skins of the grapes. The grapes pass between two metal rollers with teeth which just have enough force to break the skin and allow juice to run out. The entire mash of grapes - skins, stems, and juice - goes into a huge 330 liter (88 gallon) metal tub, where it will remain for about five days.
At home in America, I had made my own wine, twice, from kits purchased at a craft wine-making shop. There were two fermentation stages: the first, the primary fermentation, was done in a large plastic tub. Once the primary fermentation was complete, the juice was "racked", and placed in a large glass "carboy" for the secondary fermentation. "Racking" is just wine-language for transferring the liquid from one vessel to another while leaving any sediment behind. A "carboy" is just a large glass fermentation vessel, sometimes called a "demijohn". I believe that what we are doing now, by letting the bruised grapes and their juice sit for 5 days, is the primary fermentation stage. Sometime within the next few days, Misha will test the juice with a "sucrometer" to determine the sugar content of the juice, to see whether or not any additional sugar will be needed.
Misha and Klara harvested the grapes, while I ran them through the grape mill. Once he was finished with dental school classes for the day, Misha's son Sasha also helped.
I would not have thought that we would end up with as much as we did. I estimate that there is probably only 500 square feet of land used for growing grapes, and we only harvested 2/3 of that. But that yielded enough to fill the 88 gallon steel tub 3/4 full, with mashed grapes and juice.
Some of the black grapes looked dry, shriveled, and ugly. I asked what had happened to them, and was told that wasps had pierced these grapes, and drunk the juice.
Because of his leg injury, Ivan wasn't able to participated in the grape harvest, so he spent the day stringing together little hot red peppers. These peppers are unbelievably hot! If I understand Ivan correctly, these are the same type of peppers which are used for paprika. These same peppers, when green, will be kept in "Mason" type jars, instead of being dried.
When she wasn't picking grapes, Klara was bust sweeping leaves from the courtyard. I've seen brooms like these in America, used for decoration, but here in Ukraine they are actually used. Ivan makes the brooms himself ( I don't know what they are made of). For certain jobs, these brooms are actually very functional - more so than an ordinary broom would be. They are great for sweeping up leaves in the yard; Klara also uses them to clean the pig and chicken pens.
Klara's neighbors on the south side are really nice people; they are always joking with me, and teasing me good-naturedly about my speaking Ukrainian. While we were harvesting grapes, the neighbor-lady was clearing here garden of dead plants with a scythe. Below, the "Not-So-Grim Reaper":
We finished the grape harvest about 6 PM, and decided to have a small celebration. While Misha started a fire, I went to the convenience store for beer. Klara prepared bread with sliced onions, and skewered large pieces of salo on sticks. Misha heated the salo over the fire, then let the ft drizzle onto the bread. Klara cut off the cooked pieces of salo, and added them to the bread.
Misha's wife, Miraslava, and children, Misha and Katya, joined our little party. Klara's sister Marta also joined us, as well as her son Misha, who had just returned from a business trip to Hungary. Since Misha's wife Natasha, and his granddaughter Annichka, were waiting in the car, Misha couldn't stay, but took some salo covered bread with him.
As simple as the day was, you could hardly ask for a more pleasant and enjoyable time!
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