Joy of Home Wine Making (20 page)

Heavily flavored grapes like Concord and Muscadine will produce a heavily flavored wine. You can attempt to make them without sugar if you want to, but the acid will be way off and the flavor too much for most people. So compromise. Use half the amount of grapes, add water to make up to the gallon, and check the PA to see how much sugar you need—probably about a pound. Be sure to add half a teaspoon pectic enzyme, 1 teaspoon yeast nutrient, and a Campden tablet. Use a Montrachet yeast.

DRAGON LADY WILD GRAPE WINE

I’ve named this after a friend who loves dragons, and gives me wild grapes from her property every year. We think they are actually Foch grapes gone feral, but it’s hard to be sure.

Wild grapes and semiwild grapes vary drastically in sugar content, even from year to year. Flavor will, too. Gather them dead ripe. You can also use this recipe for other grapes when you have only a limited amount. If you have only a handful of wild grapes, make up the difference with tame grapes.

1 gallon water

2½ lbs. sugar or 3 lbs. mild honey

3 lbs. wild or other grapes

1 tsp. acid blend

¼ tsp. tannin

1 tsp. yeast nutrient

1 Campden tablet, crushed (highly recommended)

½ tsp. pectic enzyme

1 packet Montrachet yeast

Boil the water and sugar or honey, and skim, if necessary. Pick over the grapes carefully. Take them off the stems. Discard any bad ones. Put them in a nylon straining bag and crush with clean hands or a potato masher. They stain like all get out.

Pour the hot sugar water over the crushed grapes. If you prefer, you can chill and reserve half the water beforehand; if you’ve done so, you can pour it in now to bring the temperature down quickly. Add the acid, tannin, and yeast nutrient, but wait till the temperature comes down to add the Campden tablet and the pectic enzyme. Be sure to use the pectic enzyme. Cover and fit with an air lock.

Check the PA and write it down.

Twenty-four hours later, add your yeast. Stir down daily. After the first excitement of the yeast is over (about one week), remove the bag (don’t squeeze). After the sediment has settled down again, check the PA. If it is above 3 to 4 percent, let the must ferment for another week or so, remove the bag, and rack the wine into your glass fermenter.

Rack the wine once or twice during secondary fermentation. Bung and fit with an air lock. Be sure to keep it in a dark jug, or put a piece of cloth around it to keep out the light.

In four to six months, check the PA. Taste it. I prefer this wine bone dry, but you might want to sweeten it when you bottle it. Use stabilizer, and add 2 to 6 ounces of sugar boiled in water. Keep it for a year. If you get a dark stain on the sides of the
bottle, don’t worry—it’s the nature of some dark fruits with lots of color. Serve at room temperature if red, and chilled if white.

NOTE: You can use this recipe for Oregon grape, which is not a grape at all, but nice in its own way. Beautiful foliage, as well.

GRAPE CONCENTRATE WINES AND KITS

These wines are easy and fun. SO many varieties are available!
This
is how you make a Chablis, if you want Chablis! You make them in five-gallon batches. Usually, it takes two to three cans to make the wine if you use the concentrates. Follow the directions given by the various companies, but double-check with your wine supplier. He or she might have other ideas, from vast experience. You can make SO many classic varieties, and they usually turn out well. However, they aren’t cheap to make. The more you pay, the better quality you get.

During the height of winemaking season, it isn’t a bad idea to keep an open can of red or white concentrate in the refrigerator to help give some of your thinner wines body, as discussed earlier.

KIWI WINE

Kiwis are easier to get and much cheaper than they used to be. They make a very nice white wine, as well. I’m talking about kiwifruit, not the small flightless bird from New Zealand. Those make lousy wine.

3¾ quarts water

2¼ lbs. sugar or 2½ lbs. mild honey

3 lbs. fresh kiwifruit

1 tsp. acid blend OR juice and zest of one small lemon

¹
/
₈
tsp. tannin

1 Campden tablet, crushed (optional)

1 tsp. yeast nutrient

½ tsp. pectic enzyme

1 packet champagne wine yeast

Put the water mixed with the sugar or honey on the stove to boil. Peel and chop the kiwifruit, put it into a nylon straining bag, and tie the top tightly. Put the bag of fruit into the bottom of your primary fermenter, and use your clean hands or a sanitized potato masher to crush the fruit.

Pour the hot sugar water over the crushed fruit. If you prefer, you can chill and reserve half the water beforehand; if you’ve done so, you can pour it in now to bring the temperature down quickly. Add the acid, tannin, and yeast nutrient, but wait till the temperature comes down to add the Campden tablet if you choose to. Cover and fit with an air lock. Twelve hours after the Campden tablet, add the pectic enzyme. If you don’t use the tablet, then merely wait until the must cools down to add the pectic enzyme.

Check the PA and write it down.

Twenty-four hours later, add the yeast. You want the fermentation to start right away. Stir daily.

After about one week remove the bag (don’t squeeze). After the sediment has settled down again, check the PA. If it is above 3 to 4 percent, give it another week or so, and rack the wine into your glass secondary fermenter. Bung and fit with an air lock.

Rack the wine at least once during fermentation.

In four to six months, check the PA. Taste it, too. You might want to sweeten it. Add some stabilizer and 2 to 4 ounces of sugar dissolved in water. Bottle it, label it, let it rest six months, then open and enjoy it. A nice table wine, served lightly chilled.

MEAD

(
FOR TERRY PRATCHETT
)

This is where honey comes into its blessed own. Use the best local honey you can get, light or dark. In some areas you can get honey from bees used to pollinate various fruit and grain crops. These include citrus blossom, apple blossom, clover blossom, alfalfa, and buckwheat. There are wildflower honeys galore. Each one has its own character. If you live in a place where it’s feasible, you might investigate keeping your own little herd of bees. It’s a fascinating hobby, with bountiful results. (Training the beedogs to herd them, however, is a bit of a pain.) Check your local agricultural extension service.

Fruit wine made with honey is called melomel. Pyment is grape
and honey, Metheglyn is herb and honey. Cyser is apple and honey. But honey and honey is mead! Simple.