A well-established grapevine shading the patio is the most iconic feature of any Andalusian cortijo. The lush, broad foliage provides ample shade and will cool most patios down, even on the hottest day in August. Our guests would often take photos of the green and purple grapes hanging over their heads. Juicy grapes that grow freely are a true sign of the Mediterranean and the only reason why we let the fruit stay on the vine most of the summer. The truth is that for most local people, the fruit of the grapevine is a bit of a nuisance. When the grapes first mature and are sweet enough to eat, things are great; but the situation can become complicated. Because the sugary fruit attracts wasps, many people cut all the fruit down as soon as they form and throw it away to keep the sugar-craving wasps at bay.

The problem with grapes is that their growth isn’t adequately staggered to fulfil a simple supply-and-demand chain over an extended period of time. At the first sight of ripened grapes in early August, I get excited. I pick up a large bowl and go to the patio to cut down a few bunches for personal consumption. I stare for a minute or two at the homegrown grapes and feel smug thinking about all the poor schmucks who have to go to the supermarket to buy their grapes. Look at me and my grapes. I almost chuckle in my self-satisfied pompousness. Unavoidably, the said bunches of grapes end up on social media, carefully posed and filtered, to inspire awe in my enemies. As August turns to September, the need for the fruit diminishes drastically, but the vine itself increases its production to unprecedented levels. At that stage, I also have to deal with tons of figs that will have begun to rot on the trees.

Usually, by September, I feel sick to my stomach from eating grapes and figs and find myself in a position where I don’t ever want to eat any more fruit in my life, but — waste not, want not. I grab another bowl and wander off to collect the figs before they all fall to the ground. As I approach the fig tree, I see black starlings stripping the tree of the fruit. Walking under the fig tree and picking the fruit, I can feel the squishy flesh under my flip-flops — there is now a thick layer of rotting figs on the ground that I am walking over.

I wish we had pigs, I think to myself. They’d love it here. But then we’d need to house them, feed them, call the vet, and maybe eventually slaughter them. This is too big a commitment and possible emotional challenge just to solve the problem of having too much fruit.  

The curse of the Andalusian bounty is that all the delicious fruit and vegetables that grow here have a tendency to ripen all at the same time. On many an occasion in the late summer and early autumn, I’d find myself in the kitchen surrounded by containers of different provenance filled with grapes, figs, peaches, onions, peppers, tomatoes, and courgettes. At these times, it is a blessing to have a house full of summer guests who appreciate free fruit and vegetables. But even the most enthusiastic of guests can’t eat all the grapes and figs that ripen during the summer.

Since it was the first week of September, it was time to cut down the grapes that were now rotting on the vine and falling onto the patio. I got two sizeable black plastic baskets into which I tossed the fruit. After an hour, I had filled both baskets to the brim with grapes. I should have tossed them over the fence into the dry river bed at the bottom of our valley. But I was determined to make use of them, and — more importantly — I had to fill the existential void that was looming before me. I really had nothing else to do at that moment in my life, so I decided to play a country housewife.

My first idea was to preserve the grapes the same way that I preserved tomatoes and figs, namely, sun-dry them. The production of raisins seemed like an easy enough job, but it took several days. I selected several succulent bunches of grapes from the baskets, cleaned them, and then placed them in the direct sun, next to the tomatoes and figs that were also in the process of being sun-dried. While the grapes were sun-drying, I decided to ask some friends on social media what else I could do with the remaining grapes — there was still a basket and a half left. The immediate response was, of course, to make wine. I considered it for a second and even searched online ‘how to make your own wine’. However, after my superficial research effort, I was sure that it would be a futile endeavour.

To start with, I did not have the requisite equipment to make wine, including the giant jugs to store the wine in during its fermentation stage. Knowledgeable how-to-make-your-own-wine bloggers also listed funnels, airlocks, rubber corks, straining bags, wine bottles, sanitised corks, a hand corker, and a hydrometer as essential to successful wine production. The only items on the list that I could provide in abundance were recycled wine bottles. I had not seen any of the other listed items in the ferretería, or hardware store, where, in addition to DIY and farming tools, most farmers buy their kitchen and food-processing utensils. I’d have to drive all around Andalusia to find all the bits and pieces indispensable to wine-making.

‘Making your own wine is a great conversation starter,’ one of the wine bloggers had made a list of ten reasons why you should make your own wine.

Do you want to be the type of person who makes her own wine in order to talk about it incessantly at parties and social gatherings? I asked myself while reading.

Few things in life are as annoying as people who deliberate about their artisanal food-preparation techniques, the heirloom fruit and vegetables they grow, and craft beverages they brew. I wasn’t ready to encourage this type of nonsense of haranguing strangers about my homemade Andalusian patio wine. I also had a strong recollection of the wine that our neighbours who live at the end of the valley make each year.

Every spring, Antonio brings us a couple of two-litre plastic bottles of his father’s homemade wine. It is made by Old Antonio from his patio grapes and is dispensed in recycled Cola, Fanta, and Sprite bottles and distributed as gifts to his neighbours and friends. The transparent plastic bottle allows any wine aficionado to ascertain its exact colour, opacity, and viscosity, which I can best describe as muddy-orangey-pink-water — a ‘poor man’s rosé’ is the best way to describe it. Whenever we are generously gifted one of Old Antonio’s wines, I place it in the pantry next to the other cleaning products. But — despite my reluctance to drink it — it miraculously disappears each summer.

It’s during the long summer evenings, when we entertain friends or guests, that we inevitably stumble onto the topic of wine-making. To prove to everyone that amateur wine-making is a potentially futile endeavour, I wander off to the pantry, hunting for the lonely Cola bottle hiding behind the bleach and window cleaning products.

‘It’s your chance to shine, my friend,’ I encourage the debutante.

Once the shot glasses are set in front of the guests, the tasting session begins. As I pour it generously into the glasses, our guests don’t have to bring them close to their nostrils to take a whiff. The initial aroma of earthy ammonia mixed with white spirits hits them in the face with brutal force. Fortunately, the subsequent anosmia, or smell blindness, is temporary but perhaps preferable for those who plan on actually drinking the wine. I advise everyone to keep Old Antonio’s rosé away from their eyes as the damage to the cornea might be irreversible.

The actual tasting part of Antonio’s wine should always be kept to a minimum. Instead of keeping it in your mouth to let your tongue and palate absorb all the flavours, it’s best to chug it down your throat as fast as possible to avoid burning off your taste buds. Strangely, despite the horrible things I have said so far about craft wine-making being a terrible conversation topic and about Old Antonio’s rosé being undrinkable, the conversation flows, and the wine vanishes.

As I was sitting on the patio, reading hipster blogs about craft wine-making, I saw Bobby next to the grape basket vomiting blood. At least I thought it was blood until I realised that, unnoticed, he’d been stealing bunches of overly-matured red grapes and was now naturally intoxicated. I put the basket away in a safe place until I decided what to do with the grapes, but after a few days, I admitted defeat and threw them away into the barranco.

In those first two weeks of September, I turned our patio table into my workstation. I sat there each day listening to comedy podcasts while vacuum-packing tomatoes, figs, and raisins. Soon enough, I was filling the void. I was almost done processing my sun-dried figs, grapes, and tomatoes and so started to plan what to do next when a tiny figure appeared around the corner from behind the oak tree. It was my neighbour, Carmen. She was carrying two heavy bags. We greeted each other, and she put the two bags on my patio table.

‘These are for you,’ she said in Spanish.

‘Oh, grapes!’ I pretended to be delighted by this gift. ‘How nice! I love grapes.’

‘Perfect,’ Carmen was delighted with her gift. ‘These are delicious.’

‘I’m sure they are.’

‘I can bring you some more when you finish these.’

As I cast my eye over the bags of grapes that Carmen had just placed in front of me, I knew that this was the precursor to an annual delivery. I could have said something to stop the avalanche of fruit that I continue to receive every autumn, but I didn’t want to appear ungrateful. And deep within me, I was very grateful.

If you enjoyed this excerpt from A Hoopoe on the Nispero Tree, Book 2 in New Life in Andalusia series, why not subscribe to this website, follow me on Facebook @sabinawriter or Instagram @cortijob.

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