Tomorrow evening I will be teaching a Muscadine Wine class in coordination with Augusta Locally Grown and the West End Market & Bakery in Augusta.  I sat down yesterday to write up a handout for my class and thought about how lucky we are to live in an area of such abundant, year-round produce.

The ice storm we had back in February broke a lot of my neighbors vine covered trees over onto my property. I’m not so happy with the trees, but those vines were wild muscadine vines. About a month ago I pulled a tarp underneath the vine-laden trees and shook the grapes out of them. I gathered several pounds of wild grapes and made a batch of wine that I’ll use tomorrow night to demonstrate how to rack the wine from one container to another.  I’ll be using a blueberry wine that’s been fermenting away for a couple of months to show them how to bottle the wine.  The blueberries were from a local farm where my hubby and I went and picked them ourselves. I love taking things that are foraged, that I’ve grown or at least picked myself and turning them into something wonderful and complex that can be enjoyed months later!

I’m sure we’ll have a good time tomorrow night and I hope to have some pictures taken so that I can post them here. I think my next class will be on Kefir or Mead, Cider & Ciser. I’ll let you know when I get it scheduled!