Cat(h) wrote:
[...]
When can I expect to harvest gooseberries, and am I naive to expect
they might get *just a little* sweeter???
[...]

It sounds as though you want them for dessert purposes, but of course
they don't need to be perfectly ripe for cooking. And if you want to
make wine, then IMO unripe ones give a much _better_ flavour than ripe.
If I had to choose only one fruit to grow in Britain for white wine, it
would be gooseberries without hesitation: a modest addition of grape
for quality, of course, but for most of us it's more convenient to pay
a foreigner to do the grape-growing.

--
Mike.