Dry Concord recipe?

[byathread]

I've inherited a couple dozen concord vines at my new place, and despite searching the forums vigorously did not find the answer I was looking for. I have a strong preference for dry wines but would like to ferment at least some portion of these concords (I'm not big on grape jelly or juice). I could do a variation on my off-dry carbonated fruit mead (which I have pretty well nailed down and could pull off), but would prefer to try my hand at a dry concord wine. One lead I found via google was this.

Any of you folks make dry (or nearly dry) concord wine? Tips, suggestions, advice would be greatly appreciated.

PS - I've never tasted a dry concord, or any concord wine that I know of!

 

[Arne]

Let them get good and ripe. Pick, destem and crush. I have an apple press and ran the grapes thru it. Put the pressed grapes in a ferment bag and threw the grapes and juice in a primary. Used a new brute garbage can for this as there was a lot of material. Checked the s.g. of the juice and brought it up to 1.090. Added some k-meta, waited for 12 hrs and added pectic enzime. Waited another 12 hrs or so and add half of my energizer, nutrient, checked and adjusted the acid, then pitched yeast. When the ferment got down to 1.060 added the other half of nutrient and energizer. Took the grape skins and pulp out about 5 days into the ferment. They made the chicken dance take on a whole new meaning. Let it ferment down to 1.010 or so and stuck it in the secondary. When it got done fermenting, s.g. of 0.994 or so, it was dry, put it in the secondary. Added k-meta and let it age in the secondary, racking if and when necessary to get rid of the lees and pulp. 5 gal. is gone, the other 5 is still aging. Don't know if this was right or wrong, but made decent wine this way. If you are a fan of oak, you can add some to the secondary. I am not, so didn't go there. Good luck with yours, Arne.

 

[Turock]

We make alot of concord, and even tho we like concord straight up, we also make some interesting blends with it that you may like even better. Basically, we do the same thing as Arne--use no water, and always be sure to use pectic enzyme on this grape. You should always take your ferments to dry. If you want some sweetness on it, backsweeten after bulk aging. You need to bulk age this for 1 to 1 1/2 years to bring the flavor forward.

We have found that we don't like concord to be dead ripe. This grape loses some of it's flavor if you let them ripen too much. Use a refractometer and test the grapes, along with tasting them. When the brix is about 15 and they don't have a big acid bite when you taste them, it's time to harvest. Wasps really like this grape when it starts to over-ripen, so get them before you see the wasps in them.

Set the PH for 3.4---so you may have to use some calcium carbonate if the PH is lower. Adjust before fermenting.

We blend some with burgundy wine that we make and many people like this one. Also do a blend with oaked concord, elderberry, and blackberry---we also make a vanilla concord by making our own vanilla extract, and an anise concord made with star anise which is a wine that many people like. Also blend it 50-50 with Niagara. Concord lends itself to being able to be blended with many other flavors, so you can experiment for yourself to find blends you like. It's a pretty versatile wine for any blend you'd like to make. It takes oak very well---I really like oaked concord. So if you think it will come out as a varient of concord juice or grape jelly, this is not the case. Especially if you blend.

 

[salcoco]

I agree with picking Concord before it gets above 15 brix. adjust sugar level to achieve 1.090 sg.It seems to get a funky flavor if the brix are higher. I have had good luck adding dried elderberries and raisins to the must. the additional tannin avert the Concord taste in the final wine. Ferment until sg is below one and you will have a dry wine.

 

[Turock]

Yes, that's another thing about concord---it's low on tannin. We always add some tannin to the ferment.

Depending on the growing season, you may be harvesting these grapes relatively early as opposed to other grape varieties. Start watching them the first week of Sept. It's not unusual to harvest in the first or second week of Sept.

 

[corinth]

Interesting article.I don't remember where I read this but on some website, it "suggested removing some of the concord grapes skins " because it makes the wine high is addidity. Has any one else heard of this?
ps: how much burgundy did you add and any partiucular tyoe of when?
You also added oak to your secondary but how much oak did you add and what tyoe? Oh one more thing: what fermentation temp did you and what what sec temp did you use?I have alot of concored grapes.
Corinth

 

[Turock]

We have never removed the skins--except one year when we were fooling around and wanted to make a white concord. I can't speak to the validity of removing skins to lower acidity because first of all, concord is a normally acidic grape and in our locale we have acid soil. So nearly all of our fruit and grapes have higher acid than most people report. So this is why we're always using calcium carbonate on many of our ferments to adjust the PH. We like a PH of 3.4 on concord.

We use Alexander's for our burgundy, altho we might get a juice bucket of it next time. We blend it 50-50 with the concord at bottling time. The burgundy is a seperate ferment--not co-fermented.

We've been using medium toast french oak for the concord---about 1/2-3/4 cups of cubes in the secondary for 5 gallons.

We like to ferment concord at about 78 degrees in order to pull more color out. Our concord is very deep red--can't see thru it. In the secondary, it's a cooler room temp maybe around 68 degrees or so because the space is air conditioned.

 

[corinth]

dry concord recipe

Turock,
Thank you for your quick and detailed response. I i know you have more concord vines than I but evey bit of what you have stated will go into my notes as my concird grapes are getting close to harvest time.
corinth

 

[Turock]

Wow--growing concord grapes in Calif.----with all the wine grapes available to Calif winemakers, and the disrespect this grape gets from the Calif. winemakers, I'm surprised anyone in Calif. would grow them on purpose!!

 

[corinth]

Dry Concord recipe

Long boring short story ahead.

When my sons were growing up, they loved to eat frozen grapes. So I Planted the concord vine and it took off and that one vine produces about 40lbs a year.

Thirty-five years ago, we would camp near Santa Barbara(carpenteria) and not that many obvious vinyards around since I was not interested back then.

last month, we all got together in Carpenteria and visited Los Olivos and some other areas.
Wow!

My sons are all grown (sigh)but they still love to eat frozen grapes their dad freezes for them including the wine grapes I am now growing(slowly)

Corinth

 

[Tom_S]

Try Montrachet yeast for making Concord wine. I personally love the flavor it gives to Concord wine, either dry or sweet.