Wine grapes

[hayseedjim]

Can you freeze wine grapes and then thaw them later to make wine?
I do this with berries and it works just fine.

 

[grapeman]

Of course you can TJim. It helps make juice extraction easier later when they are thawed.

 

[reisjdmd]

we found it useful last fall to buy an old chest freezer. therefore, we were able to pick the concord and frontenac at two different times, freezing each separately in the nylon straining bags. we keptthe frontenacfrozen while we made wine out of the concord. then we went on vacation, and left the frontenac in the freezer. we came back and made wine from the frontenac. all we had to do was unthaw the grapes whilestill in the nylon bag and throw the whole thing into the primary with some yeast.although they have only been bottled for a few monthys, they are good, given the limitations of each variety. i think freezing is an excellent method for relatively small batches of different grapes so you can stagger the wine making process. also, the freezer is only used a few weeks of the year, so not a big carbon footprint..