I had been meaning to get out to our local winery for years now but had never gotten around to it. No doubt my preference for beer had something to do with the delay, but I managed to stop by today and was able to catch the very end of muscadine grape season. Fiorelli Winery is out in east Bradenton and it’s a lovely little place that even hosts an old fashioned grape stomping event in August. They have their vineyard open for u-pick right now and I ended up with just under 10 pounds of the sweetest grapes I have ever tasted!

So of course I had to instagram the beauty! The color is a little off ~ the hazards of choosing filters when standing in full, bright sunlight!

I’ll be making all sorts of fun things with my bounty, but thought I’d share one of the easiest canning recipes ever ~ crazy simple grape juice. For real, no mashing or juicing necessary, we’re just going to throw whole grapes into a jar and, voilà, juice!

First thing you want to do is wash all the grapes. I came home with, by my count, 2 spiders, 8 lovebugs, 17 leaves, and a whole lot of little stems. See how shiny and pretty they are when they’re all cleaned up?!

Ingredients:

Muscadine grapes

Sugar

Boiling Water

1) Add 1 cup of grapes to every quart jar you wish to can.

2) Add 1/4 cup of sugar or honey to each jar if desired (my grapes were so sweet I only added 1/8 cup)

3) Ladle boiling water into each jar leaving a 1/2 inch headspace (I took this picture before I adjusted the head space ~ fill yours higher!)

4) Remove air bubbles and wipe rims of jars with a dampened clean paper towel; adjust two-piece metal canning lids.

5) Process in a Boiling Water Canner for 20 minutes.

And that’s it! Once these are cool, remove the rings and stick the jars in your pantry for at least a month. The longer it sits, the stronger the flavor will be!