wine from grapes

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wine from grapes
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marcus

Joined: 07 Apr 2005
Posts: 20

Posted: Fri Oct 13, 06 7:46 am Post subject: wine from grapes
My grape vine has done quite well this year, but not well enough to eat them. How do i go about making them into wine? Do i just stick them in a bucket? or do i need to add sugar and yeast? Long time since i last posted but i still drop in from time to time. Thanks in advance.

Rosa

Joined: 10 Sep 2006
Posts: 387
Location: Hampshire

Posted: Fri Oct 13, 06 8:38 am Post subject:
We made wine from grapes grown in garden, it was undrinkable. I'm no expert so take advice before you go ahead or you might waste a lot of time and effort.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45704
Location: Essex

Posted: Fri Oct 13, 06 9:09 am Post subject:
Wotcha Marcus, glad you're still around. No idea on winemaking but I'm sure someone'll come along shortly

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Fri Oct 13, 06 9:59 am Post subject: Re: wine from grapes

You've got two options.

Option 1 is that you squish the grapes and make 'real' wine. Easy peasy, but if memory serves you need 12-18lb of grapes per gallon. Check that figure though, I could be wrong. You want the grapes ripe, otherwise you get something rather unpleasant. You can either add sulfite to the solution and add your own yeast (reccomended) or you can hope to rely on wild yeast. Red or white wine is do-able, if you want red then ferment the juice on the skin for a while, if you want white then crush the grapes and ferment the juice.

Optiopn 2 is that you take 3 to 5lb of grapes and add sugar to the mix, like making any 'country' wine. Surprisingly good, actually. Need to add a little acid but no need for tannin (or tea).

gil
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 18416

Posted: Fri Oct 13, 06 1:17 pm Post subject:

I'd go for Cab's option b) and make them country-wine style.

I've known too many people here try to make wine out of grapes 'not quite ripe enough to eat' only it have it turn out undrinkable. Waste of time, that.

I also had a taste of wine made by a chap who sourced his grapes annually from a vineyard near his hometown in Italy, had them sent to the UK where he made wine from them. Last year, he was concerned to find the wine was thin and sour. The only difference was the grapes - in his efforts to make sure he got hold of some, he'd ordered early, and had been given an early picking of somewhat unripe ones (by Italian standards).

Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Fri Oct 13, 06 1:20 pm Post subject:
Then surely its just a choice of variety suited to uk conditions. It's something I looked at & still contemplating on. Good grape wine is hard to beet.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Fri Oct 13, 06 1:24 pm Post subject:

gil wrote:

I've known too many people here try to make wine out of grapes 'not quite ripe enough to eat' only it have it turn out undrinkable. Waste of time, that.

Can't stress that point enough; for making wine with grape juice the grapes need to be properly ripe.

Kinnopio

Joined: 14 Aug 2006
Posts: 356

Posted: Thu Oct 19, 06 7:57 pm Post subject:

I hadn't read this thread prior to making my wine, luckily I seemed to have followed Cab's option B. I only got a bottle's worth of juice though and rather than waste it stuck in an airlock using blu-tac. It's bubbling away nicely but I have no idea what it's going to taste like - just thought it would be a fun experiment. What's strange is that my grapes produced a pink juice even though I didn't leave the skins in for any length of time. Looks like it is going to be a rose. Any ideas how long to lave it to mature - with only one bottle I only get one shota t drinking it!

Earthmother

Joined: 19 Oct 2006
Posts: 14
Location: South Yorkshire

Posted: Thu Oct 19, 06 8:30 pm Post subject:
This is a good site for any brewing recipes/advice: https://www.homewinemaking.co.uk/cgi/yabb/YaBB.cgi

pembrokestephen

Joined: 21 Oct 2006
Posts: 1

Posted: Sat Oct 21, 06 8:21 pm Post subject:

If you're going to make wine with grapes grown in the UK, you'll almost certainly need to add sugar if you want to achieve a wine of any strength.

Grapes grown in the UK don't get a long enough summer (though they might have this year!) to develop sufficient sugar to make decent strength wine - to get a 13% ABV, your OG on the must needs to be about 1.095, and you're probably going to be lucky to get anywhere near half that.

So whack in some sugar (I suppose it wouldn't be very downsizerish to suggest you get a hydrometer

) to take the gravity up to 1.095. As a rough guide, I reckoned I needed to add a total of 750g of sugar to my damsons to get a gallon of wine up to about 1.085, so if you stick roughly that quantity in, you probably won't go far wrong...

RosemaryJane

Joined: 16 Jan 2006
Posts: 46
Location: Hertfordshire

Posted: Tue Nov 07, 06 6:59 pm Post subject:

Our vine has produced loads of lush grapes this year (usually they are rock hard and really sharp but this year is different) there is no way we can eat them all so I was thinking wine... but

a) I am a complete beginner
b) I simply dont have the time to get it all together at the moment

I would hate them all to go to waste so my question is... could I freeze them and make the wine later when I have the time?

sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42219
Location: North Devon

Posted: Tue Nov 07, 06 7:04 pm Post subject:
Yes, you could. You could even crush them frozen and make a slightly cheaty Eiswein.

RosemaryJane

Joined: 16 Jan 2006
Posts: 46
Location: Hertfordshire

Posted: Tue Nov 07, 06 7:05 pm Post subject:

sean wrote:

Yes, you could. You could even crush them frozen and make a slightly cheaty Eiswein.

Whats that?

sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42219
Location: North Devon

Posted: Tue Nov 07, 06 7:13 pm Post subject:

Dessert wine. Traditionally it's made by pressing the grapes after a severe frost which gives you a higher sugar content in your grape juice because it's only the water which freezes, but Randall Grahm in California makes a wine called Muscat Canelli Vin de Glaciere by freezing the grapes in a chest freezer. His website's here: https://www.bonnydoonvineyard.com/ I don't remember all the details, but he's quite a friendly bloke (and mad as a box of frogs), so you could probably email him for advice.

RosemaryJane

Joined: 16 Jan 2006
Posts: 46
Location: Hertfordshire

Posted: Tue Nov 07, 06 7:15 pm Post subject:
Thanks Sean, I love dessert wine... I might just give it a go...

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