good results from frozen must?

[Busabill]

Hello there! So I'm still fairly new to making wine from something other than a kit. What is the best way to still make it from scratch when we are out of the harvest season and you can't find grapes? I see a lot of talk on here about getting frozen buckets of must or juice. Does this affect the taste of the finished wine at all? And where have you had good success ordering it from? I looked on winegrapesdirect.com and they seem to have a pretty fair supply of frozen juice or must for sale. Is this a good way to go? Does it matter if those buckets are 2 or 3 years old? Like some of them are? Thanks. I've very much enjoyed doing this from scratch and would like to keep doing it as we get out of the harvest season as I've definitely gotten the bug. Thanks! And cheers!

 

[ColemanM]

Hey busabill, I have ordered from winegrapesdirect and M&M (yet haven't received from later yet) and I can tell you that it doesn't matter about the age of the harvest. I have made the Malbec from WGD and have to admit, I purchased another two pails. They by far are the best grapes I have worked with. I just pitched the yeast for their petite sirah. We'll see about this one later but I have always had good luck with WGD. I also ordered Sangiovese from keystone and it has turned out great. I have never been really impressed with kits. Still have an odd taste to them for me. Good luck

 

[Pedro_PT]

Ive ony used frozen must from white grapes, and do not fear... Its good! Red grape must, never used it, but i beleive its better making it directly from grapes.

 

[heatherd]

Hello there! So I'm still fairly new to making wine from something other than a kit. What is the best way to still make it from scratch when we are out of the harvest season and you can't find grapes? I see a lot of talk on here about getting frozen buckets of must or juice. Does this affect the taste of the finished wine at all? And where have you had good success ordering it from? I looked on winegrapesdirect.com and they seem to have a pretty fair supply of frozen juice or must for sale. Is this a good way to go? Does it matter if those buckets are 2 or 3 years old? Like some of them are? Thanks. I've very much enjoyed doing this from scratch and would like to keep doing it as we get out of the harvest season as I've definitely gotten the bug. Thanks! And cheers!

I have made a couple batches from frozen and really liked the results. It's as close to the harvest as you can get in the off-season. The nice thing about frozen is that you can really plan your delivery better than fresh; meaning fresh comes whenever it's ripe. Frozen must (grapes) are a great way for folks to work with grapes who don't want to crush/destem.

 

[Kraffty]

How much finished wine to you get from a 5 gal pail of red must?
Mike

 

[Boatboy24]

How much finished wine to you get from a 5 gal pail of red must?
Mike

From what I've read, 3 gallons. That's what has kept me from trying frozen. From what I've seen, the buckets start around $120 and go up quite a bit from there. Then you have to add shipping. So for a 6 gallon batch, you're looking at well over $200. I have also heard that the quality is excellent though.

 

[Bartman]

Mosti mondiale's frozen Sonoma Edition must yields 5 gallons of wine from a 6 gal bucket of frozen juice (Pinot Noir). It's been a couple years but I don't think there were any grapes included in that - if there were, it was a very small quantity, like just enough to cover the top of the bucket. I added raisins when it defrosted, so I don't remember the volume of grapes vs. raisins. It was pretty good stuff though - not as good as wine from grapes but much less labor-intensive.