Okay, sorry for chiming in so late. I've been "out of commision" lately.
As I gathered, you have roughly 5 gallons of grapes, correct?
As others have said, freeze them in ziplock bags or something that is food-grade. Garbage bags, I have read, are not food-grade, but if the grapes weren't in there for a week, they should be okay.
So, what you do: Have the grapes in the freezer for at least a week. That is enough time to get your supplies to make some awesome wine.
The key will be once they've defrosted to know how much juice you have. I'll assume 3 or so, but I'm not sure.
Now, others might disagree, and I encourage people to let me know if they do. This is what I would do:
1. Freeze the grapes.
2. Get a food-grade, 5-gallon container - try at your supermarket bakery for one.
3. Get3 frozen White grape concentrate from your freezer section. (I will explain why later)
4. Get either3 1-gallon jugs (like the kind you get when you buy wine in a gallon) or 1 3-gallon jug (called a carboy. Costs about 20 bucks).
5. Get3 (or 1) air-locks. These allow CO2 out of your wine while it ferments.
6. You need only a few other supplies at the beginning: sulfite/campden tablets, nutrient, sugar, hydrometer and yeast. Just guestimating the expense of these: 20 dollars. The most important supplies are campden tablets, hydrometer and yeast. (WINE yeast, that is)
7. You will need a racking tube later, but in the first week that the grapes are freezing, you can get all the supplies you will need.
8. A warm place to keep your wine. Ideal temps are about 73ish. They ideally shouldn't fluctuate, but yeast can work from about 68-80 degrees. The higher the temp, the faster the fermentation. Not always a good thing, but I think it's not a problem for your first batch. The best bet is to keep your wine in the kitchen or even the bathroom.
Now for the nitty-gritty:
A lot of you might say "why grape concentrate", but I have made concord wine (which your grapes are presumably) out of JUST concord grapes. Very good, but it's lacked in complexity. If you add some niagara grapes, you might have a better wine. 1 can of concentrate per gallon is optimal.
The supplies I listed are the minimal ones you need to get. I'll write more later.
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I've been having some problems with the computer as of late. Hope I'm not too late in responding.
Edited by: MedPretzel