Leaves and Clusters : A venerable Concord vine at Susie O’Toole’s Ventura home provides plenty for the family and the farmers’ market.
The serene vineyard setting--parallel rows of green-leafed vines accenting the rolling landscape--is a rare site along the back roads of Ventura County. For all its flourishing agriculture, grapes are a commodity the county cannot support commercially. A warmer climate is a must.
Hence, most of the grapes grown in the county come from back-yard gardeners.
That doesn’t mean locally grown grapes aren’t available.
When Susie O’Toole and her husband purchased their Ventura home six years ago, the landscape of their back yard included a venerable grape vine. Left free to roam for years, the vine meanders over a wide area, producing many clusters of juicy sweetness.
“We think the vine could be near 100 years old,” O’Toole said recently. “It snakes all through the back of the house and continues to be a heavy producer year after year.”
O’Toole’s grapevine is a Concord--the same variety that fuels the lucrative U.S. grape juice industry. This grand old vine is special in these parts because it produces a rare commodity--some of the only grapes offered fresh to the public. O’Toole offers her sweet, dark purple fruit at Ventura’s Saturday Farmers’ Market.
“I first started juicing all the grapes and made Popsicles and jelly,” O’Toole said. “But that was just too much--I still have jelly left over from the beginning.”
The prolific grape harvest caused an entrepreneurial light to flash in her brain: “I decided to sell them.”
O’Toole has been at the farmers’ market for four years now, doing her part to satisfy customers’ insatiable appetites for grapes.
While differing varieties are available at your local grocer, the Concord is not likely to be one of them--and there are certainly no locally grown Concords.
And just in case you were wondering, O’Toole does offer the broad leaves from her vine to customers--at a price they are sure to like--free. They are used for decoration, O’Toole said, and for certain recipes, such as the Greek or Middle Eastern stuffed grape leaves called dolmas .
As for the availability of her grapes, the season is a fleeting one.
“It’s always the first week of school (early September) to the middle of October.”
“I sell baskets of grapes for $1,” O’Toole said. That’s well over a pound’s worth, she said.
If you happen upon O’Toole while strolling the Saturday Ventura Farmers’ Market, you’ll discover she’s not the only grape seller there.
K.B. (Pete) Hall--noted for the apricots he grows in the Upper Ojai Valley--is also a member of the elite group of Ventura County table-grape growers.
Two acres of his fertile land is devoted to 15 varieties.
“We’re located in a warmer microclimate much more suitable for growing grapes than other areas of Ventura County,” Hall said recently.
A compatible climate, coupled with iron-rich soil, allows Hall’s vines to flourish and offer some of the county’s most respected grapes. “The red soil up here is similar to the kind of soil the famed European grapes are grown in,” he said.
“Some of my more popular wine grapes are zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon and the Merlot,” he said. Besides selling some off each year to the Ojai Winery, Hall also offers his organically grown grapes to home-winemaking hobbyists.
Come Saturdays, though, he can be found sitting right next to O’Toole at the Ventura Farmers’ Market.
“This year I’m selling the Red Flame and the Black Prince,” Hall said.
The Red Flame is a crispy, seedless type, while the seeded Black Prince is similar to O’Toole’s Concord variety.
When time permits, Hall will squeeze some of his grapes to offer fresh-squeezed grape juice at the farmers’ market.
“We don’t use any preservatives, so you have to keep it cold,” he said. Drink it fast. “Before too long it starts to get a little feisty--kind of like hard cider.”
* WHERE AND WHEN
* Winemaking hobbyists wanting further information about procuring Hall’s wine varietals can leave a message for him at 525-3170.
* The Ventura Saturday Farmers’ Market is held 8:30 a.m. to noon at the corner of Santa Clara and Figueroa streets.
