Grape type unkown!

[pip]

This is my first go at making grape wine, though i make fruit wine. I'll have about 12kg of frozen grapes harvested from a sunny wall at my brothers house. I've tried to identify the grape online but i've really gotten nowhere with that. I do know it is of South African origin. The grapes turn a very pale red when ripe and have the most amazing flavor. I'm not good at describing tastes, the best i can do is to liken it to artificial grape flavor, incredibly aromatic, very sweet, wonderful. I juiced some last year and the juice is bright green, so i'm guessing its a white wine variety?

My question is on what yeast to use. For my fruit wines my go to is Lalvin Ec 1118 which never seems to fail. Can anyone confidently recommend a better yeast for the above description or does it not matter too much given that it'll be a fairly small amount of wine, 1 to 2 gallons i suspect?

 

[Johny99]

They do sound like best as a white or rose if they will give up color. Most red grapes also yield green or yellow juice as the color comes from the skins. For accuracy, there are types, e.g. Petit Verdot that have red juice. How tannic are the seeds and skins? If not much and you like color, you can leave them in a bit and see what happens.

I'd go with any white wine yeast you can get. Once you see what the grapes do as wine, you can get more carried away with yeast selection. All in all I find yeast selection is like spices, not necessary for the stew, but can make a difference.

 

[pip]

Thanks John, i'll go with a white wine yeast and see how it goes. In answer to your question, the seeds are highly tannic, really astringent but not so much the skin, there's no way of separating them in the must though so i wont leave them in the primary more than is necessary. Cheers