Bad Manners and Brimstone

I'm watching my 18th-century grape vine like a hawk, so that I can pick my grapes five minutes before the birds and rey squirrels move in and gobble the lot.

(NB that my vine itself is only 8 years old, but it is a cutting of the Great Vine at Hampton Court, planted in 1768 for George III. So the grapes are genuinely the exact same kind and flavour that he would have eaten. https://www.hrp.org.uk/hampton-court-palace/explore/the-great-vine/#gs.kj0XSi8. )

The Hampton Court grapes are normally ripe in September, but that vine is in a glasshouse; mine is out of doors in a windy garden, so it routinely ripens about a month later.