Is grape juice as healthy as red wine for the heart?

Posted in: Grape Growing by admin on June 16, 2010 | 3 Comments

I don’t like wine of any kind but I want to protect my heart. Why doesn’t red grape juice have the heart healthy sign on the bottle like the regular grape juice? I would think that red grape juice would be healthier for the heart than the regular since red wine is recommended for the heart.

I am sure that grape juice (real grape juice) contain vitamin, mineral and other molecules that are necessary for the protection of the heart. http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=40. However it is a very good reason why wine made from red grapes is recommended over grape juices made from red grapes.

The skin of the red grape is what carries the active heart protective molecule – Resveratrol. In grape juices the skin is squashed and thrown out. In some grape wine the skin is included in the fermentation of the wine. The skin is not included in the processing of white wine and grape juices. Hence some wine would carry the benefits of the grape skin, while the juices would not.

Resveratrol is present in high concentration in only some grapes and so not all wines has the benefit of resveratrol; not even all red wines have this benefit. This is because it is filtered out during processing. This important molecule is in high concentration in only the sad, unhealthy red grapes. Why so? Resveratrol is the molicule that protects sad grapes from heat, bad weather, or drought.

You may get more information about resveratrol from: http://www.symmetrydirect.com/wconnect/wc.dll?jws~hpage~JGRANT~1
From the home page click on View Genesis Vidio – this will give you the name of one of the wines with resveratrol. It also gives some information on resveratrol.

Again from the home page click on Training Center.
Scroll down to Product Training – Genesis DVD
Click on play – listen to the first two third of the DVD. (you may if you wish stop at the product comparison)
Here you will get information on why grape juice and white wine would not have resveratrol, how resveratrol protects the heart, control cholesterol and increases HDL

wine making?

Posted in: Grape Growing by admin on | 2 Comments

hello i have started making wine at home using the kits which have turned out really well but i would now like to try and make white wine from supermarket fruit juices i have only ever made 1 gallon batches and would like to make at least 5 gallons from the juices but do not know what kind of calculations i will need ie. how much juice,sugar,yeast etc.i like a nice dry wine so any tips or recipe`s would be gratefull.

Don’t. At least, not at first. Whenever you try out a new recipe, make the smallest batch possible. If it is terrible, you’ve wasted less. If it is good, just multiply the ingredients to give you the new batch size. You won’t need to increase the amount of yeast much, though, if any.

Be very careful not to start with juices that have preservative in them. They will kill your yeast.

You can get recipes and instructions from any book by CJJ Berry.

Wine question? How are the skins of grapes removed when making?

Posted in: Grape Growing by admin on | 3 Comments

a white wine? And, How are the grapes processed when making a "blush" wine?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine-press

http://www.eckraus.com/home-wine-making-using-wine-press.html

http://www.leeners.com/winepress.html

So the juice is collected, chemical additions made, and finally the yeast to ferment the juice is added.

For the so-called blush wines the skins are allowed to remain in contact with the juice/must for a short time in order to extract some color compounds from them.

Pojďme na pivo.

Can I bring in my tomato plant for the winter?

Posted in: Grape Growing by admin on | 5 Comments

This was the first year I have been able to grow anything, and the only plant that survived was a tomato plant (I’m a beginner gardener). It has produced a lot of fruit and is a really pretty plant. The people at home depot told me it would just die after 1 season. But a neighbor who has been watching me grow it all summer just told me if I brought it into my apartment during the winter, it would keep on growing and produce more fruit next summer. It’s in a large pot (I’ve transplanted it 3 times), so should I bring it in before the first frost, or will it just die? It’s a grape tomato plant if that makes any difference, and as of right now it’s still very much alive, and I would hate to see it just die. And I have a nice sunny window edge to put it in. Experienced gardeners?
The sunny window ledge I have is sunny enough to keep my small indoor palm tree alive, and those need tons of sun.

Congratulations on becoming a gardener!

Tomatoes are actually perennials so you could bring it indoors, keep it watered and put it back out next year. However keeping it at the right temperature and moisture levels will become so frustrating that you will eventually throw it out. It would be easier to just save some seed (unless it is a hybrid) from one of the tomatoes and start a new plant next spring. Even if you successfully bring it indoors, it will not keep producing fruit as it needs to go dormant for a while.

Next year try putting out a few green bean plants, they are fairly easy to take care of.

Good luck.

How to make a white wine cream sauce?

Posted in: Grape Growing by admin on June 15, 2010 | 1 Comment

I’m looking for a recipe to make a white wine cream sauce for my chicken pot pie. Any recipes? Recipe links would be helpful. Can you recommend a white wine to use.
OR can you help adjust the recipe I already have as to how much wine to add.

1/3 cup butter or margarine
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 3/4 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup milk

looking at your recipe, i am assuming that the flour and butter is for your roux(thickening agent) and i hope that you’ll be mixing those two ingredients separately and adding them at the end–i would put more salt, more pepper,(double them) and then give it your own personal "panache" with some rosemary, or maybe some garlic–or some cayenne if you like it hot–have fun!–add one cup pinot grigio reduced to a quarter cup–let me know how it turns out, john

What is the flavor difference between red and white grapes?

Posted in: Grape Growing by admin on | 3 Comments

not wine. the grapes.

The red grapes have more sugar, thus they are sweeter.

What colour of grapes make red wine?

Posted in: Grape Growing by admin on | 6 Comments

It can range from light red to greyish purple to bright purple to almost black.

In almost all red wines, the colour of the wine comes from contact with the skin. The juice is actually clear, but the skin of the grape imparts the colour. That’s why you can have a white Pinot Noir or a white Pinot Gris – the juice clear and can be pulled before it gets colour from the skin.

Edit:
Dune is correct as well. Sometimes white grape wines are blended with red grape red wine and the final product is a red wine. There are several excellent Shiraz/Viognier blends coming out of Australia.

The Best varieties to grow in the SE for canning?

Posted in: Grape Growing by admin on | 2 Comments

I’ve already started my garden this season here in SC, and I’m looking at next year already.
Any experience/recommendations?

Here’s what I’m looking for, and what I chose for this year.
Tomatoes:
Celebrity
Costoluto Genovese
Viva Italia
Heirloom blend (5 varieties including Brandywine)
Golden Rave (a yellow grape variety)
Supersweet 100
Roma (the dog whacked them)

Green Peppers:
California Sweet (I’m not happy with the germination on these and will be looking for another next year)

Cucumber:
County Fair
Alibi

Beans:
Borlotto Solista (for dry beans)
Festina (for canning)

Peas:
Maestro

I also have some yellow onion sets, a squash (Rumbo, looks kind of like a pumpkin) and Cantaloupe (Ambrosia), eating cukes (Pearl) plus some okra pass a long seeds, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries and a couple of herbs.
I make jams, sauce, salsa, pickles, pies, and can what we don’t eat fresh, but this is only my second time growing for canning. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I forgot to mention, except for Celebrity and Roma (may they rest, in pieces!), the berries and the squash herbs and onions (yellow storage is all I know about them), these are all new varieties for me.
Pal, thank you so much for our answer. My youngest and I are out in the yard, watching the bumble bees. It’s a really pretty day today, but all too soon it will be 100 deg in the shade and I won’t want to poke a toe out while the sun is up.
Clemson University (which is where our county extension office referred me) has excellent information on the technicalities of growing here in SC, but not so much information on which varieties hold up for canning/preserving nor do they factor in tastiness.
As for lettuce and other greens, we ran through the packages of seeds that I had faster than expected (they grew like crazy in our yard, but the neighbors are just getting started, microclimates?) and we’re kind of tired of salads at the moment. I’m using the space for onions now.
I do have one tomato that the kids planted in the mint/oregano barrel, it’s a German slicing tomato, and most of the heirlooms in the mix are also slicers. It sounds like you’re really missing your garden!

It sounds like you have a wonderful garden. Gardening is my favorite past-time. I have a few suggestions for you.

From Burpee try:

Burpee’s Stringless Green Pod – Good canner, flavor.

Cucumber Lemon (Heirloom) – Lemon yellow cucumbers are tender and sweet, excellent for salads and pickling. These are fun as well as tasty.

Cucumber Burpee Pickler (Pickling) – Early-maturing, black-spined pickles, on full-sized vines.

Cucumber Picklebush (Bush, Pickling) – White-spined fruits have classic pickle look, deep green with paler stripes.

Sweet Pepper Great Stuff Hybrid – A colossal stuffer at 7" long and 5" wide, ripens from green to dark red.

Tomato Big Mama Hybrid – The new standard in home grown paste tomatoes. Enormous!

From R.H.Shumway (www.RHShumway.com) try:

Amish Paste Tomato – "Real tomato taste" in a turn-of-the-century Amish heirloom. The best for sauces and canning. Bright red fruits are large for canning types, about 8 oz., and not too acidic. Excellent for slicing fresh too!

Jupiter Sweet Pepper – Produces big, heavy, blocky, 4 lobed peppers like mad. The 30 inch plants are strong, and set on a load of fruit that have very thick walls and great taste whether harvested as traditional green bells or as mature reds. TMV tolerant.

I never tried to grow cantalope, but one year I did grow it . . . the very best tasting cantalope I ever ate came from my compost pile. It tasted much better than any store bought. So, is this because it was a hybrid that lost some flavor when they hybridized it to get longer shelf life? I know if you plant seed from hybrid fruit it goes back to it’s original, non-hybrid form. So, maybe you should try saving seed from a store bought cantalope and see what you get when you plant it.

Have you tried square foot gardening? It is a system devised/promoted by Mel Bartholomew. He wrote a book and did quite a nice series on PBS. He also has 3 videos showing his methods. My gardening is so much easier and more enjoyable since I started using his methods. It is also tremendous fun for children. I have purchased his book cheaply on ebay – several copies that I give away to fellow gardeners. It is packed with all sorts of gardening info along with describing his system. His web site is: www.squarefootgardening.com

I hope some of this helps. Happy gardening!

how to make a white sause and wine sause for a sea food pasta?

Posted in: Grape Growing by admin on June 8, 2010 | 3 Comments

Hi I just asked what sauce should I use on a sea food pasta and most of mine answers were white wine and garlic, so know I want to know how to make that sauce or could I just buy it with that combination at the store???

I would use white wine, a couple of shallots and a couple of cloves of crushed garlic. I would also use cream to thicken the sauce and nicely coat the pasta when it is added to it.

Start off by gently cooking the chopped shallots and garlic in a little butter, then add the white wine (not too much, maybe about a glass full) and cream. A little ground pepper. Heat until it comes to the boil. Add the sea food (I presume that it has already been cooked) and heat (Not quite boiling).

Then add the cooked pasta (pasta should be just a little undercooked at this stage) Heat a little longer, and Voila!

Edit: errk! forgot the parmesan cheese!

Substitute for dry white wine?

Posted in: Grape Growing by admin on | 4 Comments

Yeah, I’m looking for a good substitute for "Dry White Wine" ?
I’ve heard people recommending "White Grape Juice" or "Sherry Wine". Do any of you agree with em’?
My dish i’m cooking is: "Cockles and Mussels"!!!

if it were me, I would use water in a sweet dish and chicken stock in a savory dish.