Making wine from table grapes

[NorCal]

I've shared my wine at work and it has gone over pretty good. A co-worker has grapes growing in her yard of unknown varietal on a few overgrown vines growing along her fence and she asked if I could make wine out of it.

I quickly responded that yes I could make wine out of it, but I doubted that it would taste very good. We are talking less than 100 lbs, so maybe a few gallons.

Here is my plan to do a Rose with it. Crush the grapes, leave it on the skins for enough time to get some color. Press and adjust must to 24 brix, 3.5 ph. Ferment dry under airlock, age 5 months racking a few times. Filter, SO2, back sweeten if necessary to .5 brix and bottle. Would you change anything?

I may also throw some pressings from my Zin that I will be doing to get the fermentation going. It is not important that the wine taste authentic to the varietal, just something they can drink and say that that it came from their yard.

 

[cmason1957]

Plan sounds reasonable. I have a friend who owns a winery, his best selling wine is an unknown varietal that he found growing on the property when he bought it. Makes a delicious white wine or of it. I sort of think it is a Niagara variant, but who knows. So I guess what I am saying, go for it, it might be great.

 

[CheerfulHeart]

Others know more than I about the technical details but I really like the idea that you are making them a "house wine" from their own grapes! Keep us posted on the results

 

[davidfilip]

You can definitely make wine from table grapes. The problem is that they usually don't have enough acids to hold the body of wine. I would go on lower brix: around 20 would be enough. Drink it early.

 

[Floandgary]

Think about backsweetening with some kind of dried fruit/raisin for an added flavor. As you would with oak chips. Or a blend with a flavorful favorite.

 

[NorCal]

I was also thinking of crushing their grapes and add them to a second run on the Zin pressings, that I'll have. Once it is all together, add water, sugar, and acid as necessary.

 

[JohnT]

sugar in table grapes runs typically around 17 brix, so you will definitely want to do a sugar adjustment (unless you want a soft wine).

However...

ACID, ACID, ACID...

You will find that the PH will be crazy high. Have plenty of tartaric acid on hand.

 

[NorCal]

Perfect, thanks John.

 

[ceeaton]

sugar in table grapes runs typically around 17 brix, so you will definitely want to do a sugar adjustment (unless you want a soft wine).

However...

ACID, ACID, ACID...

You will find that the PH will be crazy high. Have plenty of tartaric acid on hand.

John, what pH and TA would you aim for if you were making a wine from table grapes? Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[JohnT]

John, what pH and TA would you aim for if you were making a wine from table grapes? Thanks for your thoughts.

I would shoot for a TA of at least .65 to .70 gpl. You can go lower if you find that to be too much acid for your tastes, but if you do consider raising your SO2.

 

[NorCal]

I hit my co-worker up and told her to get ready that we were probably three weeks away from needing her grapes. She said the Gardner trimmed them off, since they just let them go each year...arg. However, there are about a dozen clusters left over, so we will give them a quick squeeze and add them to a second pressing of the Zin.
Since they aren't really wine drinkers, im thinking of back sweetening to give it the novice appeal.