my grapes

[Padalac]

I picked a couple of KG of grapes from my vine a couple of weeks ago. There were handfuls of beautiful wine grapes, that had tasted quite sour just a month and a half or so ago. Actually I was quite disheartened and gave up on them, but then they seemed to ripen quite late. No idea if this is normal

Anyway, I've never made wine before, but I want to give it a go - I have these grapes which are from somewhere in france, no idea what variety, but they taste good and they are definitely a wine variety. I've got them in the freezer at the moment but want to get them fermenting soon - anyone got any tips?? what do i need.

thanks!

[MarkA]

I made grape wine last year and I've only just bottled it. I just added water, mashed the grapes, fermented on the pulp for a week (I didn't use a straining bag as suggested in the link below), strained off and into a demijohn with an airlock and left it to finish. I had to add extra sugar at the start to raise the OG to 1.090.

There's a useful article HERE which explains the process. I didn't test for acidity, I guess it depends how technical you want to get!

[Padalac]

You added water?

[MarkA]

Yes, it was just over a pint, just to top the juice up to a full gallon. If you've got loads of grapes then you'll probably get enough juice without having to add water