[Sca-cooks] Re: Re: grapes for verjuice

[Stefan li Rous]

Thorvald commented:
> At 17:09 -0700 2005-04-21, she not wrote:
> >  What little I know about  viniculture includes thinning for max
> > production of many varieties..I believe verjuice was made from
> > those cullings, from grapes still unripe at harvest, and from
> > grapes hit by early frost (unless they were ripe enough for ice
> > wine, which is delicious, btw.)

My opinion on this is pretty much as stated above, although I've not 
got any specific evidence confirming it.

> There were in period, and are today, many vinyards that devote specific
> areas and varieties of grapes destined to become verjuice.

Upon what are you basing this comment? At least today, there seem to be 
only a few sources for verjuice. Are these special varieties today just 
for verjuice? Or are these the same varieties used for making wines?

> The grapes are deliberately picked unripe, and turned into verjuice.

Yes. Verjuice was also made from other fruits such as crabapples. I 
don't know whether crabapples or grapes were considered to make 
superior verjuice in period. That bit of info would be useful to have. 
It could be that crabapples made superior verjuice but were more 
expensive than using grapes pulled for thinning. Or it could be that 
crabapples were used to make verjuice in regions that didn't have 
native grapes and thus was cheaper than using imported verjuice.

> Verjuice is made deliberately and (in period) in large quantities, not
> as a way of getting rid of otherwise useless grapes (though doubtless
> small quantities were made from such material).

And this, I definitely would like to see any evidence for. Perhaps 
there are agricultural treatises which talk about growing grapes for 
verjuice? Or manor reports which say x amount of vineyard for wine 
grapes and  y amount of vineyard for verjuice?

This might also depend upon the quantity of grapes that need to be 
plucked before they are ripe to thin the vines. If it is only a small 
portion of the grapes, then the amount of verjuice that could be gotten 
this way, even if it is the cheapest way to get it, might not be enough 
to satisfy the market and whole vineyards might be needed to grow 
enough grapes to create enough verjuice. On the other hand, if a third 
or half of the grapes have to get picked early, then that is a lot of 
grapes to otherwise throw away. Anybody have any resources which say 
how many or what proportion of grapes should be thinned from a modern 
vineyard?

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
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