first attempt with wild grapes

[wood1954]

After 4 hours of searching and picking i came home with about 26 lbs of grapes and stems. Beautiful day to be in the woods.
Here's my recipe so far
;
26 lbs grapes
1 gal of spring water
2 tsp tannin
2 tbsp pectinase
1 tsp amalyze
1 gram of K-meta
3 lbs sugar
some medium american oak
3 tsp nutirent
30 grams of calcium carbonate
1 pack of 71b-1122 and one of EC 1118

I mashed all the grapes on the stems in a bucket using a 2x4. Then put the pulp in paint strainer bags and used the yellow mop bucket to squeeze the pulp. This yielded 1.5 gallons of thick almost black juice with SG of 1.085 and PH of 2.8. I added the gal of water and all the chemicals at this point, waited four hours and filtered some juice and got an SG of 1.050. Then added the sugar. The juice really smelled bad very herbaceous or foxy i guess, i mean really strong. However after 24 hours it was almost all gone and now 48 hours later it's pretty much gone, hopefully it all disappears. The ph is now 3.3. I plan on adding more sugar to get to 18% alcohol if possible so i can make port out of it. . Right now the juice looks pretty black. I pressed the frapes and fermented off the skins to keep the acid and tannin levels down.
I also made sure i wasn't picking any moonberries which look like grapes but are poisonous. that's about it, if anyone has any ideas to make it better let me know.

 

[TXfanatic]

How's this going wood?

We started ours batches (two different 2.5 gallon recipes) about the same time as you. One finished very quickly and the other not so fast. I am pleasantly surprised how good they taste. Kinda wished we picked more when we had the chance.

Steve

 

[wood1954]

Glad to hear yours turned out OK. I made mine as a port. So far i think will be really good. It had a real earthy taste at first but now it's got more of a wine taste but much stronger, hard to describe. I kept feeding it sugar until it must have been at 20% alcohol!

 

[TXfanatic]

As a newbee I didn't have a clue what it would taste like. I do know now that like Elderberries it has a strong flavor. Your choice to make a port= good call! I'm looking forward to experiment with the "free" grapes next year.

Steve

 

[Snafflebit]

I remember my grandmother making jelly from wild grapes. I helped pick them. I even recall the cooking pot had something like a little glass spiral steam condenser on the lid. As I recall the taste of the jelly was good and it tasted remarkably like Concord. So, I would imagine the wine from wild grapes would have a foxy flavor.

 

[wood1954]

update on wild grape port

Bottled the port yesterday. I used EC-1118 and it seems like it went to 20% alcohol. It also tastes like it. I tried an ounce or so at bottling and the alcohol was very hot. The wine has a nice earthy aroma to it and has good body, nice tannin and acid. I would say next winter i'll be trying it and enjoying it.
I made 15 bottles out of 26 pounds of grapes. Maybe i'll try it again, maybe not will have to wait at least a year to find out.

 

[Arne]

Make sure next year, make a seconds wine from it. Keep the fruit in a bag, when you get it to where you think you have all the goody out of it, take it out and start another batch, add a few cans of white welches or something like that and let it ferment together. Think you will be pleasantly suprised. Arne.

 

[wood1954]

update

Had a bottle of the wild grape port acouple weeks ago and it was pretty good. Heavy body, full grape taste with almost all the earthy taste gone. Alcohol has blended well with the acid and flavors, not so hot but you know you're drinking port not wine.I think i'll let it sit till thanksgiving or so. hope to have time this fall to make more.