Concord Grape Wines
Concord grapes are the most popularly planted native American grapes. Early colonists embraced them, harvested them, and used them to make wines, jellies, jams, and tarts. They were the first of the native vines from which cuttings were planted to form vineyards. A variety of Vitis Labrusca, the Concord Grape is resistant to many of the diseases which destroy the European grape, Vitis Vinifera; they were the first onto which Vinifera cuttings were grafted to combat insects and disease and the first to be successfully cross-pollenated with European stock to produce hybrids. Most notable of these hybrids are French-American, but crossings were also made with German, Spanish, Portugese, Lowlands, and Baltic grapes. The resulting vines are hardy and produce good yields.
- 6 lbs fresh Concord grapes
- 5 pts water
- 3-1/4 cups granulated sugar
- 1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
- 1 crushed Campden tablet
- 1 tsp yeast nutrient
- wine yeast
The Concord, however — even its hybrids — rarely contain the high amount of natural sugar that pure Vinifera varieties contain. They also contain more pectin and acid, and their wines may exude a musky aroma disagreeable to some. For these reasons their juice is always reinforced with added sugar, almost always diluted with water to balance the acid, treated with pectic enzyme to ensure that it clears, and may be flavored slightly with certain aromatic herbs or spices to counter the natural muskiness.
I have included three recipes below. The first produces a dry wine, so you may want to sweeten it slightly before bottling if you’re not partial to dry wine. The second is diluted only slightly and requires a good many more grapes to produce, but results in a full-bodied, sweet dessert wine. Both wines should be stabilized before final sweetening and bottling, either with a
commercial stabilizer (such as Sorbitol) or one crushed Campden tablet and 1/2 teaspoon of potassium sorbate per gallon. Final sweetening is always accomplished using two parts sugar dissolved in one part boiling water and allowed to cool. This syrup must be clear, so stir until every granule of sugar has dissolved. The third recipe is a “second wine,” made by using the grape pulp from the first batch of wine. Grape concentrate is added to provide body and vinous quality. I have made several second wines, all of which have turned out extremely well.