Concord Grape Wines

Concord Grape Wines

Concord grapes smell like grape candy and taste like a summer afternoon — bold, jammy, and unapologetically themselves. These thick-skinned natives of North America have been growing wild and in backyards since before the United States existed. They make a wine that is deeply purple, richly fruited, and unlike anything from a French château. That’s not a flaw. That’s the whole point. This page covers three versions: a dry table wine, a full-bodied dessert wine, and a thrifty “second wine” built from the spent pulp of the first batch.

The beginner trap: New winemakers skip the two-year bottle aging and open their Concord wine too early — what tastes rough and sharp at six months often becomes genuinely delicious by year two.

Recipe 1 — Dry Table Wine

Ingredients

• 6 lbs fresh Concord grapes (or frozen, thawed)
• 5 pints (10 cups) water
• 3¼ cups granulated white sugar
• ½ tsp pectic enzyme
• 1 Campden tablet, crushed
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1 packet wine yeast (Lalvin EC-1118 or Red Star Côte des Blancs work well)

Method

1. Wash and de-stem the grapes, tossing any that are soft, moldy, or shriveled. Place them in a nylon mesh straining bag, tie it shut, and crush the grapes firmly over your primary fermenter until every grape is broken.
2. Lower the bag of pulp into the fermenter. Add the water, sugar, yeast nutrient, and crushed Campden tablet. Stir well until the sugar is fully dissolved, then cover the fermenter with a clean cloth and leave it alone for 12 hours.
3. After 12 hours, stir in the pectic enzyme. Re-cover and wait another 12 hours.
4. Check the specific gravity (S.G.) with a hydrometer. You’re looking for at least 1.095. If it reads lower, stir in small additions of sugar until you hit that mark, then pitch the yeast.
5. Stir the must once daily and squeeze the bag gently each time to push juice out of the pulp. Monitor the S.G. each day.
6. When the S.G. drops to 1.030 (usually 5–6 days), lift the bag and press the juice out slowly and steadily. Set the bag aside if you plan to make the second wine below.
7. Siphon the liquid off any sediment at the bottom into a sanitized glass carboy and fit an airlock. Leave it for 30 days.
8. Check the S.G. again. If it reads 1.000 or below, rack into a clean carboy and reattach the airlock. Repeat this racking at the 2-month mark and again 2 months after that.
9. Once the wine is clear, stabilize it (one crushed Campden tablet plus ½ tsp potassium sorbate per gallon), sweeten to taste if desired using a simple syrup (2 parts sugar dissolved in 1 part boiling water, cooled), and rack into sanitized bottles. Age at least 2 years before drinking.

Recipe 2 — Full-Bodied Dessert Wine

Ingredients

• 12 lbs fresh Concord grapes (or frozen, thawed)
• 2 pints (4 cups) water
• 1½ cups granulated white sugar
• 1 tsp pectic enzyme
• 1 Campden tablet, crushed
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1 packet wine yeast

Method

1. Wash and de-stem the grapes, discarding any damaged ones. Split them between two nylon mesh bags, tie both shut, and crush all the grapes over your primary fermenter.
2. Dissolve the sugar completely in the water before adding it to the fermenter. Add the sugar water, yeast nutrient, and crushed Campden tablet to the fermenter with the bags of pulp. Cover with a clean cloth and set aside for 12 hours.
3. Stir in the pectic enzyme, re-cover, and wait another 12 hours.
4. Check the S.G. — target 1.095 or higher. Adjust with dissolved sugar if needed, then pitch the yeast.
5. Stir daily, squeezing both bags each time. Check the S.G. as fermentation progresses.
6. When the S.G. reaches 1.030 (about 5–6 days), press the juice from both bags and set them aside if making a second wine.
7. Siphon off the clear liquid into a sanitized carboy, fit the airlock, and leave for 30 days.
8. If S.G. is at or below 1.000, rack into a fresh carboy. Rack again at 2 months, then again 2 months after that.
9. Once clear, stabilize, then sweeten with about 1¼ cups of simple syrup per gallon (this is a dessert wine — it should be noticeably sweet). Rack into sanitized bottles and age at least 2 years.

Recipe 3 — Second Wine (from spent pulp)

Ingredients

• Pulp from 6–10 lbs of Concord grapes (still in the nylon bag, kept moist)
• 1 gallon water, minus 1 cup
• 8–10 oz red grape juice concentrate or bottled Concord grape juice (like Welch’s 100% grape juice)
• 2 lbs granulated white sugar
• 2 tsp acid blend, or the juice of 1 lemon plus 2 thin slices of apple
• ⅛ tsp grape tannin powder, or 1 used black tea bag
• ½ tsp yeast nutrient
• 1 packet wine yeast (the yeast already in the pulp may carry fermentation on its own)

Method

1. Start this wine immediately after pressing the pulp from Recipe 1 or 2 — the pulp must stay moist and the native yeast active. Do not let it sit overnight uncovered.
2. Combine the water, grape concentrate, sugar, acid blend, tannin, and yeast nutrient in the primary fermenter. Stir until the sugar is fully dissolved.
3. Add the bag of spent pulp to the fermenter. Cover with a clean cloth. Note: the starting S.G. may read lower than expected because some alcohol is still trapped in the pulp — this is normal.
4. Stir and squeeze the bag daily. Ferment until the S.G. drops to 1.010.
5. Lift and squeeze the bag firmly to extract every last drop of juice, then siphon everything into a sanitized carboy and fit the airlock.
6. Rack after 30 days, then every 2 months until the wine is clear and produces no new sediment within a 10-day period.
7. Stabilize, sweeten to taste if desired, and siphon into bottles. Age at least 2 years before opening.

Why this works

Concord grapes belong to the Vitis labrusca family, which produces higher levels of pectin and acid than European wine grapes. The pectin is a problem because it creates a permanent haze in finished wine — pectic enzyme breaks those long pectin chains apart so the wine can actually clear. The extra acid is why you dilute the must with water; you’re not watering it down, you’re balancing it. Because labrusca grapes are also lower in natural sugar than European varieties, added sugar is required just to hit the alcohol level needed to preserve the wine (around 12% ABV). Starting at a specific gravity of 1.095–1.105 accounts for the liquid you’ll lose during racking, landing you near the target in the end.

Notes

Frozen Concord grapes (thawed completely before use) work just as well as fresh and often release juice more easily because freezing ruptures the cell walls. If you want to soften the characteristic “foxy” musk that Concords are known for, add a whole cinnamon stick, a vanilla bean, or 1 tablespoon of fresh rosemary (tied in a small cloth bag) to the must during primary fermentation only — remove it before moving to the carboy. Potassium sorbate (available at homebrew shops or online) is the easiest stabilizer to use before back-sweetening; follow the package rate for your batch size.