2008 Concord Wine
Those grapes I picked were indeed Concords as I suspected. I got about 36 pounds or so, which turned out to be plenty for concord wine as you want to dilute it down with a lot of water because they are very acidic.
On Saturday night we cleaned and destemmed them all and Anne volunteered to give them the stomping of their lives. We learned that the machines that crush and destem for you are probably worth the money; destemming sucks and stomping isn't a whole lot of fun either.
Following the first recipe listed here (times 6), in addition to the crushed grapes I also added two and a half gallons of water and about ten pounds of sugar to the fermenter. Wow, that's a lot!
I do plan on doing the second wine recipe as well, where you take out the mashed grape guts about 5-7 days into the first fermentation, squeeze as much juice from them as possible, dump them into another fermenter and add more water and sugar and ferment again. Very soon we're going to be having a lot of wine in process around here.
The thing about concord wines is they have to age for a long time before they get good. This recipe says at least 3 years, so I guess in 2011-12 we'll see if this wine turned out well. (Maybe I should do the same thing with the cherry wine?)
Hi! I loved reading about your wine. I also make Concord wine (and Niagara – the white variety) and must say that in general, Concords tend to be so acidic because they are not always pruned well. For example, the presence of uneven ripening in the photo above tells all. Also, Concord vines are very vigorous and do best with long-cane pruning. If the fruit is to be used for wine, it’s also best to do a “green harvest” in July, to cut down the amount of fruit the vine will struggle to ripen. I invite you to visit my blog too. Cheers.
— Paul Bulas Oct 7, 11:24 AM #Paul,
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I got these grapes free from someone on craigslist so I had no control over the pruning or doing a green harvest. However I do have a concord vine in my back yard but I don’t know how to prune it so that it’ll bear a good amount of fruit. This year I have maybe 5 small bunches on what seems to be an enormous vine (it’s taking over the back fence and gate).
You have a great blog, very inspiring. I hope I may be able to learn some things from you!
— Matt Oct 8, 10:14 AM #