Foraging Manchester: Wild Grape Juice From the Riverbank Grape

Wild grape juice out of riverbank grapes.

Riverbank grape growing along the River Raisin northwest of the village.

Editor’s Note – If you are not familiar with a plant, consult an edible plant guide and/or an expert before you eat it. These articles are intended to introduce these edibles but not to be used as the sole source for identifying them.

All it takes is a walk along the river to tell that fall is just around the corner and an indicator that's hard to miss is the purple clusters of riverbank grapes hanging from the trees. In fact, it's from these grapes that our river gets it's name. Named La Rivière aux Raisins by the French (raisin is the French word for grape) it seems just as apt a name now as it did 300 years ago.

While it's easy to spot, it does have 2 look-alike vines that are similar in appearance, Virginia creeper (which is common) and Canadian moonseed (which is rare), both toxic. So, how can you tell it's grape? One way is by looking at the leaves, grape leaves a single leaf with a toothed margin (edge looks like a saw blade). Virginia creeper leaves are palmately compound, divided into 5 separate leaflets. Canadian moonseed also has a single leaf like grape but it's margins are smooth. If the leaves have fallen already, look at how the vine attaches, wild grape attaches with curly tendrils, while Virginia creeper attaches with little sticky pads and the moonseed climbs by twisting it's main vine around things. The berry clusters of Virginia creeper have very red stems while clusters of grapes do not. If you are pretty sure what you have is grape, the final thing to do is to break open a couple of berries. A grapes contains multiple little oval seeds while a moonseed berry contains one larger, crescent moon-shaped seed, which is how it gets it's name.

Comparison of grape leaves with moonseed leaves. Our wild grape looks like the grape leaf in the left. From http://www.uwgb.edu/biodiversity/herbarium/shrubs/vitrip01.htm

The Virginia creeper leaf is divided into 5 leaflets and easy to distinguish from the grape leaf.

Grape seed compared to moonseed seed. From University of Wisconsin at Green Bay (http://www.uwgb.edu/biodiversity/herbarium/shrubs/vitrip01.htm)

Click HERE to read more info on foraging wild grapes.

Wild riverbank grape has another common name, frost grape. Although they are perfectly good to collect and eat now, you may want to wait until the first frost, which increases the sugar content of the grapes. The colder it gets, the better they taste but the longer you wait, the more of the grapes will be eaten by birds. It's up to you at what point you want to gather wild grapes.

Wild grapes make a great trail snack, jelly, and wine, but my current favorite thing to do with them is to turn them into quarts of wild grape juice. To be completely honest, if we were going by grocery store labeling conventions this shouldn’t be called “wild grape juice” but should probably be called “wild grape drink” as it contains added sugar. Trust me when I say you need the added sugar!

This is my modification of the concord grape juice recipe my mom made when I was a kid. You may remember it from your childhood too: grapes, sugar and boiling water in a quart jar, add lid, seal and let sit for a year in the cupboard. It was very sweet and delicious. After I grew up and became ingredient conscious I realized that juicing concord grapes made a much healthier, somewhat tarter, but still delicious juice. However, I hung onto my mom’s recipe and finally found the perfect use for it. Wild grapes contain lots of flavor and lots of acid but not much natural sugar, hardly any compared to commercially grown grapes. This is the perfect use for it!

I should also point out here that wild grape juice tastes neither like commercial grape juice nor concord juice. If I had to compare it to something I’d say it tastes like those juice blends (like grape with blueberry & pomegranate juice). It’s good.

Wild Grape Juice

washed & sorted wild grapes (toss the bad ones), removed from stems
1/3 to 1 cup sugar for every 1 cup of grapes
boiling water

you will also need:
clean, sterilized quart jars (check to make sure the rims carefree of nicks or chips)
canning lids and rings
water bath canner or large pot with lid full of more boiling water
tongs (and any other canning utensils you want to use)

A cup of freshly picked grapes to turn into next year's juice and a quart of juice from last year's grapes to drink.

Step 1. Bring water in water bath canner (or large pot) to a boil. Be sure the water is high enough to cover the top of a quart jar. If using a large pot, put a towel in the bottom to keep jars up off of the bottom of the pot.

Step 2. Fill each jar with 1 cup of grapes and 1/3 cup to 1 cup sugar (1/3 cup is good but tart, 1 cup is sweet!)

Step 3. Fill with boiling water and stir with a long handled spoon. Add lid and screw ring down until it’s just securely holding the lid in place but it’s not super-tight.

Into the boiling water for 20min.

Step 4. Place the jar in the boiling water bath canner and cover with lid. Bring back to a boil (if it stopped boiling). Boil covered for 20 min. Turn off burner and remove lid from canner. Let sit for 5 min. Remove jars from canner and set on cooling rack to cool.

Step 5. When cool, remove all the rings. Make sure each jar has sealed. Do this by lifting gently on each lid. If it hasn’t sealed, it will come off easily. On all the jars that have sealed, write “wild grape juice” and the date on the lid. Then stick it in the back of the cupboard and forget about it for a year (or at least 9 months). Trust me, it’s barely drinkable at 6 months, good at 9 months and great at 12 months. If you have jars that didn’t seal, remove the lids, wipe the rims of the jar clean and check again for nicks or chips, put on new lids and re-process for 20 min.

Straining a quart of last year's wild grape juice.

Step 6. To drink, shake well, pour wild grape juice through a strainer INTO A PITCHER. Discard grapes. Drink juice! (I emphasize “into a pitcher” because I can think of a couple of occasions grape juice was strained over the sink like pasta resulting in much laughing but no grape juice to drink).

Note for those who can’t eat sugar: the sugar only sweetens here so it is okay to replace it with splenda or stevia or the non-sugar sweetener of your choice. It would be okay to replace it with honey or maple syrup too if you are looking for a non-processed sweetener option. It will probably take some experimenting to figure out what amounts work best!

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by Sara Swanson

Sara Swanson is an editor, writer and founder of the Manchester Mirror.