Uses for Grape Marc

A final clean up of the Cave today as part of the end of vintage. The last job was to break down the basket press and perform a thorough clean. There are still some pears and apples maturing in the orchard and the press will receive additional work between now and the end of April. After that it gets a coat of non toxic paint to the base plate and is put aside for another year.

Just as the grape marc was about to be tossed into the compost there was a pause and some light globes (LED) went off. There was the faint memory of a cheese we had seen at Simon Johnson's shop more than a decade ago. It was a cheese that had been stored in grape marc. We obviously tried a piece and found it interesting.

Grape Marc

After a quick check on the web a few options were uncovered.

Grape Marc Aged Tomme

here was a Havarti in the cheese fridge from last October that we felt was a bit dry. It went into a container shrouded in marc with a bit of freshly pressed wine. And as a proper test a nicer cheddar like cheese was also covered in marc and stored. These will stay like that for 2-3 months.

In Europe cheeses like this are made and stored for a period of months then coinciding with the end of vintage they are brought out and shrouded in grape marc for 3-4 months before consumption.

Just in case any of these cheeses turn out fabulous a few jars of marc were frozen. No need to wait until next vintage for the ingredients.

We finally caught up with a nearby farmer who had a stack of mulch silage round bales for sale at $30/~ton. We met up with him at 2.30 and loaded the ute and trailer as a bonus he chucked on a third bale as a bit of compensation for having to wait so long (at no extra cost). By good fortune we'd brought along a jar of our creamed honey as gift. Good swap. It always pays to sweeten a deal whenever possible.