Making Juice

My friend Corinne bought a house and while it was being renovated there was a huge harvest of grapes in the arbor of her yard. She decided to make grape juice and asked a friend how to do it. Following her instructions, Corinne picked many clusters of grapes and put them, stems and all, into a barrel-like container. She crushed them with a stick and then left the juice to sit for several days. I was visiting on the day she remembered that she had to strain the juice and boil it.






She was a bit concerned that the juice may have ‘worked’ a bit, as she had left it longer than intended but it seemed to be fine. (Honest!) I helped her to strain the huge amount of juice, lifting out colander after colander of skins and stems, carrying them to a corner of the backyard and dumping them while the other person began straining the next lot. Once it was all strained, we poured the juice back into the barrel and transported it to Corinne’s apartment. There we poured it into pots and Corinne boiled it, skimming the top from time to time.














She then poured the juice into large bottles that she had sterilized previously and left them to cool. While it was still hot I enjoyed a lovely glass of the fruitful drink.

The next day we went together to Corinne’s new place with the jars of cooled and sealed grape juice and took them down to her storage cellar, placing them on the shelves that would – in true Moldovan style – soon be filled with jars of fruits and vegetables and juices put up for the long winter ahead.