Grape glut spreads to jam

May Croft with her pinot noir paste. Photo / Wairarapa Times Age

A Martinborough winery is not quite turning water into wine but the semi-miraculous transformation of grapes into jam.

A surplus of pinot noir grapes at Croft Wines this year has led winemaker May Croft, who is also the Anglican Archdeacon for Wairarapa, to come up with the idea of turning the excess into a jam-like pinot noir paste.

"At first we tried to focus on that sort of vanilla flavour you get with pinot but then we just worked on the cherry flavours," she told The Wairarapa Times-Age.

"We had to play around; grapes don't have any natural pectin, so we had to work that one out."

The mixture does not set naturally and pectin and lemon is added.

"We think we've got it at a very nice consistency. You don't have to cut it with a knife; it's spreadable but it's not going to slide off the cracker."

They will make 300 to 500 small glass jars of the paste. "Like all good jams and jellies you need a small batch to get that homemade flavour."

According to Mrs Croft, the resulting product "goes fantastically with cheese, and beautifully with chicken".

- NZPA