The plot is lucky enough to have neighbours who have planted a grape vine in their garden and the fruit of their labours is overhanging my plot. Having fought off a couple of neighbours who (very unusually for allotmenteers who are very rule abiding) were trampling over my seedlings to get to my grape leaves (and my courgette flowers), the fruit are ripening nicely despite the rain. I snuck a taste in and the fruit are not sweet enough to eat alone but they could be viable for wine making.
Unsure of how heavy my haul will be I am not sure where to start but I have two alternatives. The first is the lazy person's option. That is to hire people to make your wine for you. You join a club and for £80 you get 6 bottles of a blend of South London grapes back. You can then buy extra bottles (yes please!) for just under £5 each. Seems a little pricey to me but you don't have to worry much about it and they might make a better result than a complete amateur. On the other hand it isn't exclusively your own wine and works out very expensive - we could be swimming in Blossom Hill for that price.
The second alternative is to go all heath Robinson and experiment with syphons and distillery things. Hop and Grape sell kits that allow you to produce 1 gallon (4.5 litres) £35 or 5 gallons for £64. At almost 23 litres that's £2.13 per bottle. However that excludes the sure effort that will be involved and the lack of guarantee that it will be in any way drinkable.
Decisions, decisions - it's enough to turn a girl to drink.....
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