CranGrape

[Julie]

Volant Mills Winery in Volant, PA has a Grape-Cranberry wine that is dynamite. When you take a drink you would first taste concord then cranberry. So I decided to make it. I made a one gallon batch using Welch's concord grape concentrate and Welch's cranberry concentrate. I started this in July, so tonight we decided to open a bottle since it has been 6 months. Oh is it good, we ended up drinking a bottle and a half. Since I did not make two separate wines and blended, I just added both flavors and left it ferment together my wine tasted different than what Volant had but I really like it. So now I have to make a bigger batch, but it will have to be a 3gallon since I do not have a free 5 gallon carboy.

Here is what I did:
7/23/09
1 gallon batch
2 cans of Welch's concord grape concentrate
2 cans of Welch's cranberry concentrate
1 tsp pectic enzyme
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1/2 # of sugar or sugar for s.g. 1.080
2 tsp acid blend (I have no idea why I added this without doing an acid test)
Red Star Premier Cuvee yeast
8/16/09 racked and added 1 campden tablet
10/11/09 - acit 1.20% added 1/4 tsp potassium bicarbonate, campden tablet and sorbate
10/21/09 tested acid - .70%, added 1 cup of sugar f.g. 1.010. bottled.

Julie

 

[djrockinsteve]

Hey Julie, I added this to my list of wine to do. Thanks.

Tonight I was at GFS in the South Hills, they have a berry mix looks really good for making wine. I think it was $7.00 a bag. (5 pounds). My eyes are bigger than my carboys.

 

[Julie]

I know what you mean on eyes being bigger than the carboys. I think I need to get more carboys. That berry mix sounds pretty good.

 

[deboard]

My brother made a cran-grape wine that uses a similar recipe, and it is indeed really good. He kept one bottle dry but sweetened the rest, I got the dry one, and it was good.

@djrockinsteve: I love GFS, I discovered it recently and that's where I've bought frozen fruit for my last two batches. Just came home at lunch today with 10 lbs of cherries! Sam's is a bit cheaper on fruit, but they don't have the selection of GFS.

 

[Runningwolf]

Julie, this is the exact same thing I am going after. I started out with fresh juice though. I started mine the 1rst of October and have 12 gallons of Niagara and 6 gallons of cranberry all aging separately. As soon as I have the time I will be racking one more time and back sweeten after stabilizing. I will then let them sit another three months before blending. I am thinking it will be about 75% Niagara and 25% Cranberry (just a rough guess before testing). Plus I'll have some straight Niagara and Cranberry wine also.

 

[djrockinsteve]

Julie, I just bought (on sale and I used my foodperks at Giant Eagle) 8 cans each of Pomegranite Blueberry and Pomegranite Grape. They are frozen 100% juice. They are next as soon as I rack the blueberry later or next week.

I just bought real cheap several used gallon glass carboys. I just need to add 5 Gallons.

 

[Julie]

Julie, I just bought (on sale and I used my foodperks at Giant Eagle) 8 cans each of Pomegranite Blueberry and Pomegranite Grape. They are frozen 100% juice. They are next as soon as I rack the blueberry later or next week.

I just bought real cheap several used gallon glass carboys. I just need to add 5 Gallons.

There is a winery up Runningwolf's way that sells a Pomegranite/concord. It is very good.

Did you get those carboys off of Craigslist? I had seen someone had 5 gallons for sale for $10

 

[Julie]

Julie, this is the exact same thing I am going after. I started out with fresh juice though. I started mine the 1rst of October and have 12 gallons of Niagara and 6 gallons of cranberry all aging separately. As soon as I have the time I will be racking one more time and back sweeten after stabilizing. I will then let them sit another three months before blending. I am thinking it will be about 75% Niagara and 25% Cranberry (just a rough guess before testing). Plus I'll have some straight Niagara and Cranberry wine also.

I blended mine from the get go and did a 50/50. I has a tart finish but I like that. I'm thinking about doing separately next time and see how that works. Niagara sounds like a good choice. You got me thinking.

 

[djrockinsteve]

There is a winery up Runningwolf's way that sells a Pomegranite/concord. It is very good.

Did you get those carboys off of Craigslist? I had seen someone had 5 gallons for sale for $10

Yes, Craigslist. I have been looking from time to time for 5 Gallons but the few I've seen want $25.00 for used ones. Their $25.00 for brand new.

 

[Runningwolf]

There is a winery up Runningwolf's way that sells a Pomegranite/concord. It is very good.

Did you get those carboys off of Craigslist? I had seen someone had 5 gallons for sale for $10

Julie which winery are you talking about?

 

[Julie]

Julie which winery are you talking about?

I don't remember the name, I'll let you know later. I have a friend who's in-laws camp up around Erie and they go to the winery's. She got a bottle of the promegranite/grape from them and her and I drank the whole bottle, it was quite tasty.

 

[Runningwolf]

I am thinking it came from Johnson's winery in Westfield NY which isn't too far from the state line. I think it was called grapeagranite or something like that. I mixed it with tonic water.