Fresh Ricotta

Making cheese is a simple pleasure, I love the quick and low tech method of curdling some milk with lemon juice and sitting down to a plate of fresh milky ricotta.

When we get into the more complex cheeses it is time to scrub up and enter 'the lab' as we call our processing space. We've learnt the hard way that a bit of laziness can ruin a batch of cheese so now it is clean, sterilise and scrub up for cheese.

Fleurieu Peninsula is renowned premium dairy country, and even our own backyard - now a sea of vines - was once a land of milk rather than wine. The block next door ran cows up until ten years ago. The region has historically had farm house cheeses that disappeared as farms grew and bulk milk sales became the norm. There are a few well known producers that have returned to making farm house cheeses and producing local milks that celebrate terroir.

The traditional Italian Ricotta, unique in that it is made from the whey that separates from curd during cheese-making. At Producers we make Ricotta using whole milk, this method is not unknown in Italy and we prefer the creamy result. As you would expect, the Milk makes all the difference in flavour and texture, we use our local milks: Alexandrina Cheese Company and Fleurieu Milk Company Jersey Milk for our cow’s milk Ricotta. For goat’s milk Ricotta and curd we source from milk from Hindmarsh Valley Dairy.

There are several methods of acidifying the milk to bring out the curd, we use a mixture of Lemon and White Wine Vinegar. Whole Milk Ricotta will give almost two kilos of cheese from 10 litres of milk.

Home Made Ricotta Method

Heat milk to 90 degrees C, stirring continually.
As the milk reaches temperature, take off heat and stir in acid (vinegar approximately 5% of milk volume, lemon juice around 10% of volume – experiment as it depends on the strength of your lemons and vinegar), the milk will coagulate.
Strain the curds for around five minutes.
Transfer the curd to a mixing bowl and blend in desired fat and flavouring, eg: salt, pepper, butter, cream or olive oil.

Try Sheep or Goat’s Milk for a tangier Ricotta. Every batch we make is different. If you take longer to heat the milk your curd will be softer. How often and how vigorously you stir the curd during cooking time will affect the size of curd formed, texture changes with vigour used when mixing in flavouring.

Irrisistible spread onto freshly baked crusty bread, serve with sliced tomatoes, bake the curd or add to cakes and tarts. A favourite of ours is to make a simple salad of parsley, shallots, olives mixed with a generous amount of robust olive oil served alongside Ricotta and toasted tomato bread. Very creamy Ricotta is perfect for making cakes and puddings, as well as a savoury filling for pasta. The leftover whey can also be used in recipes.

The whole point of Ricotta is freshness, we make it the day we want to eat it, but for use in recipes it is fine kept in the refrigerator covered with glad wrap or in sealed container for a couple of days, we don't keep it over four days.

Citrus planting and Poormans Orange Willunga Farmers Market

The Spring rains grow our hope for a good season. Budburst is well underway, the start of the grape growing cycle. The enthusiastic soft new leaves grow before your eyes, I can't resist plucking them and wrapping them around new season's goats cheese, flashing under the grill makes meltingly delicious mouthfuls.

We started our stall at Willunga Farmers Market a few weeks ago. Getting out of bed pre-dawn was the hard part, regardless of romantic notions that farmers are up before the sun I'd rather snuggle in a warm bed than put up a tent in drizzling rain. After that it was all joy. We packed up the ute with old fashioned home made lemon curd, candied citrus peel, lemon syrup, fresh mandarins, grapefruit jelly and marmalade; bottles of fresh pressed olive oil, brown bags of almonds, cartons of chooks' eggs, a bowl of chinese dates and a basket of jerusalem artichokes launching ourselves into the marvellous Market world.

This was firsthand experience of the true Farmers Market contract between stallholder and shopper - this is not passive consumption, these are our co-producers! I was the green one, seasoned shoppers told us what we should grow, how we should make things, what they do with their own. It was delightful to hear all the stories and so many comments of 'used to make curd' or knew someone, or had an aunt that made the best marmalade. Ethusiastic debate arose on what chinese dates taste of - try black tea, persimmon, date, cabernet grapes, straw and tar. And the part that money can't buy is the appreciation, how deeply pleasing it is when a return customer confirms these are the BEST eggs they've ever eaten and that our lemon curd is superb. I'd always wanted to write a book on our Farmers Market, now I think I'd like to write one on the shoppers, what a wealth of information.

The enthusiastic response to our citrus laden stall gave us great inspiration for planting, the warm damp soil made it irresistible and we headed out to Perry's for more citrus. The greatest discovery this season is Poorman's Orange... with all the punch of Seville with a touch more complexity to the bitterness.

Perry's don't recommend that you put chook poo direct on your citrus trees, however if you have free ranging chooks fossicking around the trees it is just the right amount of food for the trees.

I've just finished an article for Sumptuous about how chooks are great as Citrus feeders. Try yarding chooks around your citrus for your own experiment. Scratching chooks are good gardeners anytime, tilling the soil and keeping pests down, but when it comes to citrus trees they deliver a daily gift of growth boosting fertiliser.

There are so many reasons to keep chooks, fertiliser is only one. Chooks make living a low-waste life simple with their enthusiasm for recycling your food scraps. Think of the binfuls of landfill averted as you are enjoying the luxury of fresh poached eggs.

Tips on growing chooks try www.planetpoultry.com

Glistening Beetroot

By popular demand … Chef Nigel Rich’s beetroot recipe

I made this beetroot dish for our Sea & Vines event in June – after four requests for the recipe I got around to writing down the method I learnt from Nigel.

Turn a wild beetroot crop into a deeply glistening jewel.

Peel and slice the beetroot, quite thin, we use a Mandolin. Line a baking dish with greaseproof paper, paint on a film of clarified butter and then layer the slices, overlapping about half of the next slice (dish size choose one that snugly fits a handy weight – I often use a square tin and bread board topped off with a brick to serve in squares, or I made one cake-round and served in wedges that looked great too). The first layer is the most important as when you invert it will be the top, aesthetics are important so let your artistic flare go here, alternate direction of layers creating interesting texture throughout, subtle finesse. The mouthwatering dressing between every layer is made of freshly grated orange zest and zingy pomegranate molasses, quantities are up to your own taste this is all about drizzling and sprinkling with flourish – zest the orange skin very finely and keep moist in the juice, ground black pepper, salt flakes, pomegranate molasses (there are lots of different brands, Nigel’s favourite is Alwadi) and clarified butter (just a drizzle).

Layer to the height you like keeping in mind this will be pressed overnight. Top with baking paper and tightly wrap with foil. Bake in the oven, around 180 degrees for several hours (depends on how old the beetroot is). When the fabulous aroma of baked beetroot arrives it is time to check, looking for the stunning juices to be released, oozing and luscious. The final check for readiness is texture, use a skewer or knife to feel for softness but retaining form. When cooked let cool before weighting and refrigerate overnight. Next day turn it out and serve whole or sliced into squares, wedges etc. A topping of goat curd and fresh herbs is good, or crushed pistachio nuts and drizzle of pistachio oil. Let me know your variations and suggestions.

Winter Rain & Rabbits Can Swim

Rain on the tin roof crowding out climate change.
White clouds hugged Willunga Hills, while Huey sent her down in sheets.
Today the rain is exceptional, beautiful, more beautiful than any other time following three years of drought and heatwaves and that nagging fear that the rain may never come again.

Our creek is flowing for the first time in four years. The sound of water gushing down the creek and into the dam with frogs calling is the most delicious lifegiving music I could imagine.
I followed the creek today, as if I don't know where it comes from, stood on the bridge and watched the brown water gush over rocks, under tree roots and on down to the dam.

I scared a rabbit, in his rabbit-like panic he tacked back and forth then plonked into the creek.
Frantic dog paddling began, he bumped into the bank and scrambled up the other side.
I didn't know rabbits could swim. All animals can swim if they have to, can't they? Instinctively paddling for survival. But not all humans. Perhaps they think too much.

oil press

Our Olive Harvest is nearly finished. One more old Verdale heavy with fruit waits for the pick.

There are still some cherry pink Manzanillo and sleek black plump Kalamatas hanging on for pickling.

Oil harvest is a gentle time. Making fresh bread is essential, dipping into the fresh pressed pungent oil while it is still warm from the oven. Every drop of this season's press is mouthwateringly delicious, we drink it.

We'd like to congratulate ourselves on good farming, picking the fruit at the right time and getting it to the press gently and quickly, for pressing in our well maintained Olio Mio with precision learnt through years of patience and practice. However the truth is that this delicious drop of oil is more about the growing season. The one element we play no part in.

The timing has a major influence on the style and quality of oil, so just prior to harvest we spend a lot of time in the grove plucking the fruit from each tree, gently crushing the fruit in our hands to release the juice, inhale the deep olive aroma and rub the oil into our skin, this to check flavour ripeness and oil content. The window for perfect ripeness is down to a few weeks in the year. The oil flavour of any variety can be completely changed by harvesting green through to fully ripe producing distinctly different styles. When all things are equal there are strong genetic varietal characteristics.

As with all farming we are at the mercy of wind, rain and sun.

Having successfully tended the grove to provide a crop we handle with care, press to perfection and then it is all about storage. Keeping the precious extra virgin oil away from oxygen, heat and light.

Pressing Olive Oil

The scent of olive juice is in the air. There is always a sense of celebration for the first press of new season's oil. This year we discover a delicate peppery liquid gold. So sweet and mild that our guests enjoy it straight from the press. Most years my favourite grassy early harvest bites their throats until it tames to a peppery finesse in Spring.

winter days

The last of autumn leaves have blown off in the wind, bare brown vines with wild witches' hair of rusty orange canes await the winter prune. The vivid colour of oranges and jonquils radiate against slate skies. We light the first of many bonfires mesmerised by flames spiralling into the night sky.

These winter days are ideal for preserving the last of sumptuous yellow quinces. Peel, core and quarter quinces. Make a simple syrup combining equal sugar and water, split vanilla pods and star anise. Let them blip away on the lowest heat for several hours until quinces are tender and deep red in colour. A spoonful of the thickest cream, best enjoyed by a wood fire.

Pickling to order for Sea & Vines Lunch on 7 June

I have picked, peeled, sliced and pickled over twenty kilos of quinces. My hand is sore but I'm feeling satisfied. My next job is to boil and reduce 40 litres of red wine to start the Shiraz syrup. It sounded lovely at the time when Chef Nigel Rich worked out the menu with us. I had, as I usually do, a rather romantic vision of myself humming happily peeling fuzzy quinces on a sunny afternoon and stirring a small pot of wine on a winter night, shiraz in the pot another in my glass. Of course when you are preparing lunch for up to 40 guests the pottering becomes more like a production line. Hand crafted literally becomes a physical demand. It is just one of the many times that causes me to reflect and respect the profession of chefs, and that great gulf between cooking for small numbers to a la carte service, or catering on a large scale. It is the Chef Dustin Rodgers that will shuck 120 oysters on the day of our Sea & Vines lunch, I've seen him do it before working like something between a machine and an artist. I call it the chef frenzy. I try to imitate their hustle, flick of the teatowel and pan flipping ways. Every chef has their own kitchen dance. Gliding back and forth from stove to bench, stir, taste, wipe, chop, taste, wash, pluck, trim, truss, taste, wipe.

wild mushrooms

I forgot how good mushrooms are. We found wild mushrooms under the old gum trees when we arrived in McLaren Vale 15 years ago. Blissfully pungent big brown monsters that fried up with butter and garlic as our regular weekend feast. Some kind of poison entered the food chain. Across the Vale it was rumoured that eating wild mushrooms made you sick. Our neighbours got really sick. We noticed a yellow tinge, and sometimes a red streak appeared in our mushrooms and the taste had changed, there was now a bitter after taste and when you cooked them it was acrid, we'd lost our wild mushrooms. Locals arriving at restaurants proudly presenting their foragers bounty of fungus were turned away. I called experts and was put onto the next expert, all said there were no tests to be sure the mushrooms were safe because they could only test for what they knew, and they couldn't test for what they didn't know.. which all made sense at the time. We all stopped foraging. Until this year. David stumbled across some particularly fine looking mushrooms and broke them, open, clean, white. Tasted. Fresh, delicate, earth. How precious they seem now, more exotic than imported truffles. Carefully we watch and pick them just as they break through the soil. Now we cook them in Olive Oil, still with garlic and savour with quiet respect.

Curing Olives, Pickled

There is something divinely meaty about dark black pickled olives. The depth of flavour, smooth skin and firm fleshed saltiness is a perfect start to any evening.

Grassy green olives are made for autumn lunches, summer sauces and spring chicken.

Local markets and providores have a good range of wonderful South Australian olives pickled using natural curing methods that are ready to eat.

Pickling your own becomes quite addictive when you start curing to your taste. Our Spanish Queen and Verdale are ready to pickle this week, Kalamata look to be a few weeks away.

If you don’t have a tree handy, head to one of our olive growing regions during harvest - McLaren Vale, Barossa, Clare, Adelaide Plains or Riverland - to purchase the fresh fruit, or order some at the Adelaide Central Market from about May through to August.

Most olive varieties are good for pickling. We choose the sleek black Kalamata and small Koroneiki for their full ripe flavour; the Spanish Queen we pickle green, and Verdale we prefer with a blush of purple, just as they are turning from green to black. We also pickle feral fruit from wild olive trees for their funky flavours.

Eating fresh olives straight from the tree makes me wonder how someone thought that olives could be edible and went about pickling them in the first place. The natural bitterness is astounding which explains the lengthy soaking process required to reduce that bitterness.

We’ve tried many of the various pickling methods over the years, from technical pamphlets to family secrets shared by our Greek and Italian neighbours, and used every tip offered by fellow enthusiasts. There have been some great olives along the way but we suffered from patchy results and finally cracked the consistency issue after seeking the advice of local professional pickler, Rachel Steer. The following method will produce excellent results.

Pick the olives carefully, avoiding bruising the fruit.

Wash the olives in fresh water.

For black olives you’ll need to do some pre-washing before the brine - wash in fresh water every second day until you can bite into the olive without screwing your face up. For green olives we put them straight into the brine.

Make a brine solution of 10 per cent salt, to cover your olives – use cooking salt and sterile water (mains tap water is fine).

Place the olives in a bucket with a loose cover to keep out any bugs, and keep the olives submerged (use a plate to keep them below the brine). In a few days you will see the frothing of natural fermentation taking place.

Knowing when the olives are ready to store in a lower concentration of brine is about taste. Keep trying them, it is around 4 to 6 months before we want to eat a bowl full and then we know they are ready.

When the fermentation has finished (no more bubbles) and you are happy with the taste, wash the olives with fresh water and replace with a lower concentration of brine, we use 5 per cent salt. Seal the bucket or tub and keep in a dark cool spot. A scum may form on the top, it is harmless. We like to eat these olives when they are about six months old with a fully developed olive flavour, they will last at least 12 months.

If you find the olives are too salty, soak them in some fresh water overnight in the fridge, allow them to come to room temperature before eating.

These olives are delicious lightly coated with extra virgin olive oil, or marinated with verjuice, preserved lemons or limes; gently crushed cumin, fennel, coriander seeds and olive oil; or chillies, garlic and bay leaves. Try warming them slightly in the oven with a coating of olive oil a few sprigs of fresh thyme, have some crusty bread ready for dipping in the oil.

for the Love of Quinces

I love quinces. There is nothing so-so about them. This is a passionate affair.

Their perfume must be bottled. I try to trap that wonderful scent in jelly. The original 'love apple' quinces live up to their name when slowly cooked releasing that seductive aroma.

Today my first batch of 'the best quince tree', a Smyrna, were ripe, perfect ripeness. That moment that you capture, not every year, but when you're lucky enough to have the right season and manage to visit your tree at the right moment. Only the scent tells. Yellow skin and a loosening of the furr are indications only, a deep inhalation is the cue for jelly. I like to add a mixture of greener fruit for their higher pectin making the jelly set that bit easier. The pineapple quinces will be ready soon too.

Every step of Quince preservation is delightful. Picking from beautiful trees, handling the fruit releases a divine fragarance, intensifying as you are rubbing, chopping, poaching, boiling and baking.


Like a child at christmas greedily unwrapping all of the presents at once I started every process... pickling in vinegar and verjuice, poaching in sugar syrup, then in verjuice and spices, slow baking, boiling for jelly and mashing to a paste.

Tonight calls for the celebratory Quince Harvest Dinner - usually a Tagine with quinces but this year I have Pork Belly with Preserved Quinces (chef Nigel Rich's suggestion - nothing quite like having a resident chef around), followed by slow baked quince halves in honey (that one is from Stephanie's book).





The answer is no you can't have too much quince.

End of Harvest in sight

The End of Grape Harvest is called by a lunch. Only a week or so before the harvest teams depart and machines are back in the sheds so there is a menu to plan. The wineries will still shine at night with around the clock attention for the precious few days of fermentation before the Vale pauses for a post Harvest hush.

Ferments finishing

Green leaves turn red and brown under slate grey skies, Autumn has arrived.

Every day the Baume goes down and the alcohol goes up. Most of our ferments have finished and the wine ready to mature .... bucket by bucket shimmering sheets of purple wine go into the barrels. We've invested in some new French Oak barrels, after experimentation we are finding a mix of new and old French suits our taste. Some of the 07 reds are showing every sign of being ready to bottle.

Our Make Your Own Wine day was lovely, crisp day with a warm sun so the guests enjoyed hand picking the Cabernet grapes. After a morning of crushing, plunging, measuring and pouring wine into barrels their appetites were good for the best Roast Chicken you have ever tasted stuffed with preserved lemons, and herbs.

The heavenly scent of a ripe Quinces in the orchard tells you it is time for jelly making.

The lull between our Grape Harvest and Olive Harvest is more like taking a breath than a holiday. We have begun plans for the Oil, cleaning out the pickling tubs and ordering salt.

RAIN

Life Giving Thirst Quenching RAIN. After 3 months of dry, a heat wave and harvesting on the cracking earth. Now we have wet, sweet rain. Harvested the Cabernet, old vines with attitude, and then headed out to the grand old shiraz with a grey sky. Stopped harvest ... can't have the rain filling your bins or the wine would be watered down so we put away the machinery and opened a bottle of fizz or two just to welcome the wet wet rain. How good can rain on a tin roof sound? Never better.

No Sleep in McLaren Vale

The sleep deprived vignerons share knowing bleary eyed looks as they meet around the district. Picking by hand in the heat of the day and clacking down rows at night. Away from the vineyard we spend precious hours nursing the batches of grapes on their journey to becoming our 2009 Vintage.

The nightime picks are mesmerising, something quite calming about the clackof harvester rods with the spectacle of berries pouring in a stream of light to the awaiting luminous bins on 'pick-up' tractors.

Wally's Block Riesling on Monday, Shiraz came off last night, Shiraz Malpas Block and the Viognier. Tonight we finish the Malpas block. Sleep? No, it's Harvest time!

Ripeness as only Tomatoes know how

I just plucked and ate a perfectly ripe tomato. Ripeness is perfection. Bursting flavour still warm from the sun, layers of bliss unfolding in the tang of soil, that mouthwatering sweet acid sensation.

The Joy of Figs

The first joy of figs is eating them fresh off the tree. With our own ‘sugar figs’ along with our neighbours’ spectacular giant old Smyrna fig trees providing an abundance of fruit we are able to extend the pleasure through preserving.
Our guests unanimously vote Fig Jam their favourite so I can never have too many figs.
We select large figs for preserving in sweet syrup, pickling in vinegar, and poaching in verjuice. The bulk of our crop is dried, then reconstituted in sweet or savoury liquid when needed throughout the year for tarts, biscuits, terrines, breakfast compote, alongside roasted meat or as a dessert with cream.

Drying figs is simple, and I think the best flavour comes from leaving them in the sun. We have constructed a drying tent for the purpose, but you can just sit them on a rack on a chair under a net curtain, keeping in mind you need to watch for ants as well as birds and other feisty foragers. The time needed depends on the weather but averages at about five days if it is a warm, dry spot.

We fill the racks in our drying tent, dry still more batches in the oven, and our small electric dryer hums away most of the fig season with each batch taking about 8 hours. Try drying figs whole in the oven on low for a few hours to produce a wonderful semi-dried fig ideal for warm salads.

Caramalised figs are a sweet finish to dinner. I like Jane Grigson’s Fruit Book method of rolling whole figs in castor sugar, place them stem-up snugly in a terrine dish, bake at 230 degrees Celcius until the sugar has browned (15 to 20min). Serve warm with the thickest cream.
McLaren Vale has the soil, sunshine, rain and cool sea breezes at night just right for ripening figs and grapes. Fruit selection for your home preserves uses the same principle as the professional Winemaker. You’re both looking for fully flavour ripe fruit, that is, the fruit flavour is balanced with acid, sugar, and pungency. The best apple jelly, fragrant quince paste, full flavoured fig jam and premium wine all rely on picking the fruit at this peak of ripeness.

Some fruits are robust and forgiving, unlike Riesling grapes and Nectarines where the window of perfect ripeness can be measured in hours. Timing is crucial for making the best quality Riesling. The call for grapes from the winery can come any evening, ‘we want your Riesling by 5am.’ Under the cover of darkness our pick seems like a military manoeuvre.
Harvesting through the night is not unusual, especially for white grapes where the coolness of the night is preferable for reducing oxidation.

Nectarines Next

Nectarines are just sweet enough ... relish making this week.

Harvest Begins

Summer Heatwave has called the shots and the harvesters are out in force.
After twelve hours through the night our Wally's Block Riesling is off to the Crusher!

Re-cycling food scraps into eggs is part of the satisfaction of owning chooks. Free ranging chooks that have lots of greens and juicy bugs produce the richest yolks of unrivalled quality. The pleasure of a freshly laid egg is best enjoyed softly boiled, spilling onto lightly buttered toasted sour dough bread, add a few flakes of salt, nothing more.

some fruit and vegetables like the heat

Not everything suffers with the heat. Our Mulberry crop this year is the best ever. Just back from the veggie patch and the tomatoes are amazing, bursting with flavour and ripening before your eyes.

Hot Dry and Time To Pick

The sugar levels race up in this heat, the normal rise is one baume per week, this is a good guide to knowing when you need to test for ripeness of flavour and that all important balance between sugar and acid.
This year is hotter than most. And so dry.
Even though 40 degrees starts to feel cool following 45 and 44....
The vines struggle to keep moisture in the grapes
Harvesters are out
We are planning the first hand pick Riesling this week, bunch selecting the flavour ripe berries for our own wine.
Any time soon we'll be out in the Old Vine Shiraz snipping bunches for our premium blend.
6am start planned and looking for any day under 35 as a 'cool' option!

First Harvest of Verjuice

Verjuice Viognier harvested on 15 January. Lovely big bunches, still sharp and green but with a number of pearly grapes. Our Viognier coped with the 41 degree day ... many other growers didn't have such luck.
We picked by hand in the cool of the moring, a very early pick and more in the style of 'Agraz', a sour tang. 6 degrees Baume - low sugar and high acid. Crushed and bottled a small batch, holding back some for blending for the Premium Verjuice range.

Watching, Waiting, Ripening

Watching, Waiting, Ripening time. Mid-January and the grapes are just turning from hard little green nuggets to opaque juicy fruit for the white grapes, and colour in the red grapes.

Veraison is the term for this first stage of ripeness. Followed by progressive ripening, that is the sugar increases and acid decreases.

Between now and pick day we wait anxiously and watch the weather, obsessively. The size of crop and quality of grapes is all up to the gods from here. With a little help from the bore water. The Weather Bureau website sits open on our computer screen, it may be true that a watched radar never rains.

Mostly we want rain, city dwellers will wonder if the weather is ever right for farmers as the next stage of ripeness we spend hoping that we don’t get a downpour. When the grapes are going through the ripening period there is this tricky spot where a big dump from the sky will split the berries in half. It happens often enough. Generally we’re all fossicking about with the soil, is it too dry? If the weather is too hot and the vines struggle you can lose berries, bunches and even your whole crop. Too many days over 30 degrees or high winds and the vines shut up shop and go into survival mode.

Wind and heat evaporates what little moisture there is. This is a hard year and the vines are struggling following three years of drought conditions.

Sounds gloomy? Not really, that is farming. You do a lot of predicting and planning in advance setting the vines up for the best chance of survival and good crops then you stop worrying, OK we do moan about the weather but always followed by a shrug and on with the next job, finally it is all about relying on uncontrollable and often unpredictable weather.

We have noted colour in the Shiraz in the Bovate Vineyard, just the odd berry only a few days ago yet today there are whole bunches turning a bright pink to deep rosey red. Our ranging chooks are already filling their bellies by jumping up to pluck grapes from the canopy.

Picking grapes for wine is still weeks away. Our estimate is one month to the white pick and the reds around six weeks. Red grapes in McLaren Vale aren’t ‘flavour ripe’ until they reach quite high sugar levels. With white grapes we’re going for a fresher higher acid style of wine so naturally we pick earlier.

But picking will start here at Producers very soon - for Agraz and Verjuice - we are tasting the Riesling daily, checking when it is at the right stage of acid to fruit flavour balance for making our Verjuice. We have made verjuice from a variety of grapes but Riesling remains my favourite for adding to salads and lifting flavour in sauces and dressings. I can hardly wait and it takes great patience to leave them just-one-more-day. The window for making perfect verjuice is only a matter of days so the right time for picking is crucial.