Grape Wine Red

• 15 lb red grapes
• Sugar to adjust
• 2 teaspoons pectic enzyme
• Burgundy or Bordeaux wine yeast
• Campden tablets or strong sulphite solution

Pick the grapes, remove them from the stalks and place them in a plastic bucket.

Crush the grapes by hand or with a sterilised wooden block.

Add the pectic enzyme and one crushed Campden tablet or 1 teaspoon strong sulphite solution.

Stir well, cover with an upturned plate, then cover the bucket and leave for 24 hours.

Strain a little juice to take the S.G. reading and adjust with sugar syrup to 1.090.

Add an active yeast starter and ferment on the pulp for 7 days, keeping the fruit submerged with the plate and the bucket tightly covered.

Break up the fruit cap two or three times daily.

Strain and pour into a glass demijohn and fit an airlock.

When the fermentation ceases rack the clearing wine from the lees into a clean jar and remove to a cool place.

After 2 days rack again, adding 2 campden tablets or 2 teaspoons strong sulphite solution, and fit a cork bung.

Rack again when a heavy deposit forms, adding another campden tablet or 1 teaspoon strong sulphite solution.

Mature in bulk for 18 months before bottling.

When growing grapes in this country we need good summer weather to enable the vine to produce grapes with a high sugar level, and a low acid content.

A wine made from unripe grapes will be of poor quality with a low alcohol level and a high acidity.

If the grapes can be left on the vine for the maximum sugar level to be achieved, birds and diseases allowing, a far superior wine should be achieved.