Concord Grape Wine - Can I freeze the grapes?

[chilipepper]

I'm looking for some advice. A friend of mine brought over about a five gallon bucket full of freshly picked concord grapes that I intend to make a wine out of. What O.G. am I trying to hit? I'm assuming that the grape juice will be fairly sweet but probably not quite enough to get 14% alcohol out of them. Can I use regular cane sugar for additional sugar? Anything else that I should be adding to the must?

My other BIG question is can I freeze these until I can juice them and use them. Problem is that my crusher is "borrowed out" right now and it will probably be about a week or so until I get it back. I think I'll have some pretty moldy, etc. grapes if I leave them site that long. I currently have them rinsed off and packaged in 1 gallon freezer bags.

I would appreciate any advice that anyone could offer me on this!! Thanks!

Chili

[ttreml3]

Chili
First, I'll say I haven't made wine from grapes... but... shoot for a OG of 1.10 or so but its not too critcal if you get in that neighborhood. Yup, you can use regular cane sugar. Maybe add some pectic enzyme and some acid blend to taste...
And here is my answer to your big question. YES you can freeze your grapes. In fact it will make them a lot easier to crush.
hmmm, or I should say, I have frozen other fruit and had great results, I don't see why grapes are any different.
Cheers and good luck
T

[chris_farley]

Concord grapes are very grapey, or 'foxy'; they taste a lot like Welches Grape Jelly. This is great for jelly, but it's not such a great trait in a wine.

A few good practices:

1. Do not ferment on the skins! Much of the grapey character comes from the skins. Make a 'rose' wine, not a true red. In other words, crush the grapes, and press them immediately.

2. Dilute the juice. This will cut a lot of the foxiness. For convenience, dilute with a 1.090 sugar solution. For better quality, you could use grape concentrate instead of sugar.

3. Concord grapes (unlike true vitus vinifera/wine grapes) have what's called a "slipskin". When you press, you will find the skins popping out all over the place. I'm not sure of the best way to deal with this, but some people have wrapped their presses in burlap or cheesecloth.

4. Measure the acid content and adjust accordingly, don't just randomly add acid blend. Acidity fluxuates with the condition of the crop, harvest timing, etc., so what worked great last year won't necessarily cut it this year. Acid test kits are cheap, and easy to use. Your $5.00 will be well-spent.

Most wines start out at about 1.090, but this won't give you 14% alcohol. It will be closer to 12%.

Freezing fruit will indeed make crushing easier, but I can't really comment on the quality of the resulting must.

[chilipepper]

Thanks to both of you!! I will see what I can accomplish this evening with them. I may have to pull some off and make some jelly with them since that seems to be 'the' thing to do with concord grapes! I'll get it brewing and see what happens! Sounds like it is one of those wines that is a bit tricky to get it right!

Are there any commercial wines that use concord grapes? I'm curious to know what to expect.

Thanks again!!