Grapes
Wine before the barrel: fresh grapes muddled whole, giving juice sweetness and a gentle skin tannin at the same time. That combination is what lets them stand in for both a syrup and a vermouth.
Quick Facts
About Grapes
Flavour Profile
Primary Flavours
Tasting Notes
Wine’s raw material: juice sweetness under skin tannin, gentler than any citrus and rounder than any syrup.
The Enzoni
The grape entered the modern cocktail through Vincenzo Errico’s Enzoni, muddled whole where the drink’s Negroni half expected vermouth and its sour half expected syrup: juice sweetness and skin tannin doing both jobs at once.
The same bartender built the Red Hook, which suggests a particular talent for substitution rather than a lucky accident. Both drinks work by putting one ingredient where a recipe expected two.
Wine’s Raw Materials, Unfermented
Muddled to bursting, grapes give what wine is made from without fermentation’s opinions: soft sweetness, gentle structure, and a roundness citrus cannot manage.
The tannin is the part that is easy to miss and hard to replace. It gives a drink grip in the way a wine does, which is why a grape-muddled sour tastes structured rather than merely fruity, and why grape juice from a carton will not do the same job.
Muddle to Burst, Not to Paste
The skins carry the tannin that is wanted and a bitterness that is not, and the difference between the two is how hard they are pressed.
Burst the fruit and stop. A seedless bunch saves the strainer a great deal of work, and it is worth buying for that reason alone, since seeds ground under a muddler contribute exactly the harshness the skins were being handled carefully to avoid.
The Freezer Trick
Frozen whole, grapes chill a glass of wine or a cooler without watering it: the fruit acting as its own ice cube.
White keeps a drink golden and red blushes it towards rosé, so the choice is visual as much as anything. They keep refrigerated and unwashed for days by the bunch, and washing them before storing shortens that considerably.
Frozen they also stop being usable for anything else. Thawed grapes collapse into skin and juice with no structure left, so a bag frozen for chilling duty should be treated as ice rather than as fruit held in reserve.
That makes freezing a decision rather than a way of saving a bunch about to turn. Grapes going soft are better muddled straight away, since the tannin and sweetness are still there and only the appearance has gone.
Using Grapes
Usage
Five muddled into the Enzoni’s gin and Campari frame, where the juice and tannin do the jobs vermouth and syrup would otherwise split. Frozen whole they chill wine and coolers without diluting them.
Top Tips
- White or red both serve: white keeps the Enzoni golden, red blushes it. Seedless saves the strainer.
- Muddle to burst, not to paste: the skins’ gentle tannin is wanted, their bitterness not.
- Frozen whole, they chill wine without diluting: the fruit as its own ice.
Possible Substitutions
- White grape juice, in part: the pressed sketch
- A barspoon of elderflower liqueur: different flower, same softness
Storage & Handling
Refrigerated and unwashed until use: days by the bunch.