Backyard Grapes Sour Wine

Ingredients

• About 3 baskets of backyard picked grapes from a friend, boiled and filtered.

Preparation of the juice

• Whole grapes were boiled for about 40 mins
• juice from a lemon and 2 bags of rooibos tea were added
• Juice was filtered trough strainer and cooled to RT
• sanitization recipient, airlock and tools used
• 5L Juice transfered to glass damme Jeanne.
• Pectinase was added for 8hs

One Stop Fermentation

• half a tablespoon of yeast nutrients added
• SafCider yeast pitched and waterlock placed

There was some overflow in the airlock the first few days due to intense fermentation of the sugar->CO2 by the yeast. After 3.5 weeks fermentation stalled (still at secondary fermentation likely) and the wine was bottled.

Bottling

• sanitization pump and bottles
• bottles filled by pump, with minimal headspace

A clear red wine was obtained (if the active yeast sediments to the bottom of the bottle).

Taste

Dry, very sour taste with a very lambic-like profile. Not a winner for everyone, but the owner of the grapes is a sour-lover!

Recommendations future

• Experiment with more flavours; adding wood chips?
• Experiment with walnuts (! needs to condition half a year, so be patient…)