The Cottage Smallholder

 Veronica, 

Many thanks for pointing me towards the update¦.don't know how I missed it (speed-reading I suspect ). I always sample my brews as the weeks pass¦.more fun that way. The only one I don't is the one made with green walnuts as I know it taste horrible until it is a couple of years old (& divine at five). My dark grapes are very sweet, a great surprise to me as they have never ripened like this in 8 years. I am thinking about using some of them to cook a pigeon dish I had in Italy.  You line a casserole dish with vine leaves, put in the pigeons wrapped in bacon (pancetta), vegetables, which must contain mushroom & garlic, a few juniper berries, herbs, pour over some wine & olive oil,seasoning etc.Cover the top with more vine-leaves & put the lid on. Cook very slowly & near the end of cooking add lots of black grapes till they are just cooked through.  The old farmer's wife in Spoleto gave me the recipe said it was their revenge on the pigeons who had stolen their grapes all year.She cooked it for me in a large cast-iron pot in her hearth as she has no oven. I now cook it in my slow cooker which works very well.

Oh, the leaves are not meant to be eaten, they just impart a slight flavour & keep eveything moist.