So my vine at the allotment seemed to do well in its first year since I rescued it (it was buried in brambles when I inherited the patch and has now been exposed and trained on a fence). I am not sure if the grapes are meant for eating or wine making. They are small very dark in colour and each grapes has one very large pip. Combined with the fact that they aren't super sweet meant the family were eating some but not loads.
I picked just over 9 kilos which is allegedly just over a gallons worth so I decided to aim to stretch them up to two gallons.
A quick wash and then I mashed them all up by hand. Interestingly I found the juice to be very dark red when I have made this wine from other grapes before the juice is actually not very colourful but the skins hold the colour.
I fished out most of the stems, added camben tablets and pectolase and left it overnight. The next day I checked the gravity and it was a disappointing 1.058 so I added sugar to 1.090, a small 250ml can of red concentrated grape juice and a sachet of Young's Burgundy wine yeast. After fermenting for a week on the pulp and mixing each day the mixture was strained through a bag and transferred to a couple of demi johns with a little more sugar.
Now still bubbling away and a lovely deep burgundy colour. Smells lovely too!
