After years of hard work, the time has finally come: the five friends from the Avendorp vineyard can harvest their grapes for the first time. So one early October morning they gather about ten friends and family to cut off all the bunches from the vines.
It started as one over four years ago wild plan from friends Nick, Kai, Bas, Koen and Erik from Schagen to start making wine from their own grapes, but that first wine is now getting closer. After a successful one trial crop from last year, this time it is time to harvest grapes for a large supply of wine.
“I think we expect to remove about 3 to 4,000 kilos today,” says Nick Zonneveld. So a lot of crates that are cleared together with a group of friends and family of the five gentlemen.
But it didn’t matter that the grapes did not have the right sugar and acid values to make wine. In the video below, Nick explains why this happened.
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Fortunately for the gentlemen, the sugar content of the grapes is good enough to make wine from them. After harvest, the grapes are immediately taken to a winemaker in Twente to be pressed and then stored in tanks. “And then comes the fermentation,” Nick explains.
Red or white
And although the vineyard consists of vines with red and white grapes, it is not yet clear to the winemakers what type of wine ultimately ends up in the bottle. That has everything to do with the quality of the grapes. “We have three varieties and we will first make three still wines from them. Then we will visit them every month to see what kind of wine we can make from them. We may make a blend of them, so all three put the varieties together, or at least red and a separate white wine,” says Nick.
Ultimately, the friends hope to be able to fill about 1,500 to 2,000 bottles with wine from their own grape with this year’s harvest. It will take some time before that process is completed, but it is more than worth the wait for the men. “The bottle will be opened in about six months!”