We’ll tell you when a bottle in your cellar reaches its window, or an ingredient you cook with comes into season.
Preparing
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Grape
Vitis vinifera · Fruit
17 varieties40 pairings
A grape is a small, smooth-skinned berry borne in clusters on woody deciduous vines of the genus Vitis — above all Vitis vinifera, the Old-World wine grape. Sweet, juicy and faintly tart, grapes are eaten fresh as table fruit, dried into raisins, pressed for juice, and fermented into the wine that has shaped whole civilisations.
Picking a good onedrag
Green stem, bloom on, tightBrown stem, shrivelled, shedding
Shop firmSnacking, salads, freezing whole; a couple of weeks left in the cold.Everyday best
The stemGreen at the base, tips gone brown
Bloom and skinBloom rubbed off, skins still taut
The liftA shake loosens one or two
SmellAlmost nothing, cool and neutral
What to look for, from green stem, bloom on, tight to brown stem, shrivelled, shedding.
What one gives you
96%
Usable yield
4.9 g · stems off
5.1 g
Typical weight
one specimen
65%
Juice yield
about 650 ml a kilo
Keeping ittap a band
A domestic fridge holds it about 5× longer than the counter.
Humidity
90-95%
Dry air takes the stems long before the berries: they brown, go brittle, and the fruit starts dropping. Keep the bunch in its bag and wash only what you eat.
Airflow
Vented bag, gentle air
Loose in a perforated bag, never sealed. Grey mould grows even at 0 C, so pull out any fuzzed berry; it rots the ones it is touching.
Neither gives it off nor minds it
Non-climacteric: grapes give off almost no ethylene and barely react to it, so the fruit bowl is safe both ways. They never sweeten after picking either.