Home of the BrewNosers

The California Harvest is coming along quickly. Pete's is offering both grapes and juice buckets for sale. Below is a message from jason Cave at Pete's:

Good day everyone,

It is approaching that time of year again, I am trying to get everything shipped in for Sunday, October 5th 2014.
Any questions or concerns you may have please contact me. My supplier says the grapes are looking great this year and the sugar count is right on point. Here’s to another year!


Jason CAVE
Wholesale Supervisor
The Luckett Group inc.
528 Windmill Rd.
Dartmouth NS, B3B 1B2
902-835-3558 ( t )
902-442-8848 ( f )
jcave@petes.ca
http://www.petes.ca" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The grapes require a fair bit of processing. generally 2.5 boxes will net you 5-6 gallons of finished wine. The juice buckets are much easier to manage. The white wine bukcets are pretty good, Generally better thana kit wine in my opinion. The buckets come preinnoculated, so you just ahve to follow the instruction like a kit.

What's the general availability of wine grapes throughout the year? Do they freeze them for storage?

They are pretty much only available fresh Sept-Oct of each year. Two local importers get grapes from California, and several local growers will supply home winemakers. Some places outside NS also import Chilean Grapes in the spring (their fall harvest). You can get frozen grape must through Bhrem in California, but it is very expensive, about 3 x the cost of the fresh stuff.

Crush season can be really busy because the grapes are really only available at one time.

Is this too late to hop on? I would be interested in a bucket if its not.

CorneliusAlphonse wrote:Is this too late to hop on? I would be interested in a bucket if its not.

Try calling Jason Cave at Pete's. He emailed yesterday saying that their shipment has been delayed by a few days.

The juice makes fine wine, but not exactly the style on the label (in my experence).

Sandy

GAM wrote:The juice makes fine wine, but not exactly the style on the label (in my experence).

Sandy

I've only made the whites (Gwerztraminer and Reisling). They turned out pretty well, esp the Reislings. I've not made the reds, but would think they would be a little thin without the grape skins. I've toyed with the idea of getting ared juice bucket and adding 10# of fresh grapes to it to see how it turned out.

Just noticing your response now. I'll likely have to do this at another time as I don't think I'll be brewing this beer in the really near future - have too many other brews lined up right now.