If you read the title of this posting from an English speaking point of view, you may wonder, "Must be making what?" If you read it from an Estonian point of view, you may ask, "Mis must 'making' on?" or "What is black or dirty making?" For the bilingual Hungarian, however, "must making" means it is time to harvest grapes and make fresh fruit juice.
As many of you know, we rent part of a house from a nice Hungarian family. On Saturday, the family gathered for their annual grape harvest. The grapes came from their own backyard. European "backyards" are often a bounty of fruits and vegetables. We were kindly invited to take part.
Ironically, we were not home but in a cute nearby town, Etyek, just outside of Budapest at a food and wine festival. We did get to enjoy some nice white wines especially from one of our favorite wineries, Nyakas, which we endearingly call the "horse wine." We'll post some photos soon.
Below are photos of how the family made the delicious freshly squeezed grape juice (we got a sample!). No alcohol in this must; however, you can add fermentation to this process and produce wine. We guess that Diane's Grandpa adds fermentation when he harvests his grapes and fruit in Kentucky. Grandpa's wine tastes similar to the Hungarian "must."
The grapes! Where it all begins.
After picking the grapes, they are then crushed in the mill.
Everyone gets involved!
The crushed grapes are then put into a press.
Here you can see Zoltán pressing the crushed grapes. As you press the grapes,
the juice begins to flow. Instant gratification!
Ah! The grape juice. It is a deliciously sweet grape juice.
You can really taste how fresh it is.
