White Concord

[ThreeWivesWine]

So I have a ton of white seedless concord grapes on the back fence. On the advice of my local brew store I used some in September to mix with a batch of peach wine. What a mistake that was. Last I checked it tasted like a burnt tire, while the strait peach turned out wonderful. He also advised that I make an ice wine out of it this winter. The earlier advice on top of other poor wine advice has me wondering if I should attempt the ice wine. I haven't seen much here on this. Anyone care to enlighten me?
Also, I squeezed all of the purple concords and got quart of juice at 1.07 SG. Its in the fridge and I thought I'd share the juice at Thanksgiving, but if there is something I could mix with it and/or the pulp (which I froze) I would much rather let the in-laws wash a turkey down with wine next year than grape juice this year.

 

[winemaker_3352]

Hydrogen sulfide makes a wine smell like rotten eggs or burnt tires. The wine probably lacked O2 during primary fermentation.

Ice Wine is wine made from a late harvest grape usually they are harvested after the first frost.

Concord makes a pretty good sweet wine by itself - as far as mixing it with something else i am not sure.

 

[JohnT]

A couple of suggestions...

1) test the acid. I find that concord grapes tend to be low in acidity.

2) The burnt tire smell (mercaptans) is most likely the result of hydrogen sulfide. This is a common occurence when you use a weaker yeast strain (montrochet is notorious for this) or a lack of yeast neutriant.

But there is hope. This problem (although seeming very bad) is very treatable! With treatment, you still can end up with a great wine.

This is my method for prooving and then treating mercaptans. You will need to first get your hands on 1% coppersulfate solution..

1) draw off 2 100ml samples into separate glasses.

2) skip the first glass, This is your control.

3) in glass #2, all 1/2 ml of copper sulfate. Swirl the glass and wait 5 minutes. If the smell improves, then you have just confirmed that the problem you are experiencing is the result of mercaptans.

4) if the problem is diminished, but not completely gone, add another .25ml, swirl and wait another 5 minutes. Keep repeating this procedure until you determine just how much coppersulfate it takes to completely solve the problem (or dosage). Then, scale up to the dosage for the total amount of wine that you want to treat, and then add it to you wine.


Note: mercaptans result when hydrogensulfide (rotten egg smell) goes untreated. If you do not already do this, you should check your wine (smell it) every day during fermentation and at least every week afterwards until the wine clears and you rack off the dead yeast.

If hydrogensulfide is caught quickely (rotten egg smell) then a simply "splash racking" could have cured the problem. Since it is now "burnt Tire - hot tar roof" smell, the hydrogen sultfide has, in effect, "bonded" to your wine making a splash racking rather ineffective as a solution.

In short, use copper sulfate and you can restore you wine in a matter of an hour or so.

 

[JohnT]

By the way, Welcome to the forum. How did you come by the name "three wives"?

 

[ThreeWivesWine]

By the way, Welcome to the forum. How did you come by the name "three wives"?

Hey John,
Wow, thanks for the insight into a problem I didn't realize existed. In my wine-crafting virginity I was just hoping it would age out. Its about three months along now and it is off the yeast and racked very clear. I will get right on the copper sulfate cure you mentioned right after Thanksgiving. I'd go get some right now but we're in the middle of a blizzard.
As far as the name goes. . . It is a result of living in Utah where polygamy has a deep cultural standing both in history and today. There are reports saying there are 70,000 polygamist households in the state. So the running joke is that we adopt a friend's wife as wife #2 while he is deployed in the military. Wife 3 is my wife's derby wife, which is kind of an odd custom of roller derby where they form a pact to have each other's backs no matter what.

Thanks again and I will post the results as soon as I can.

 

[Wade E]

Ive never even heard of White Concords!

 

[ThreeWivesWine]

Ive never even heard of White Concords!

I'm just going off what I was told. The 80 year old couple next door says they were all concords when they planted them in the 60s. I'm assuming they were grafted to something else and they didn't prune them properly allowing the root species to take over. I really have no idea. Its just an idea. Either way, the grapes are delicious. Super sweet and no seeds. They are like the white table grapes from the grocery store, which makes me believe they won't make the best wine but I'll try anything at least once.

I picked them all tonight as we are forecast to have single digit temps by morning. I estimate about 25-30 pounds which should clean up to at least 20 pounds. Might just squeeze them up and throw them in the fermenter with some acid and nutrient as JohnT pointed out and see what happens.

 

[JohnT]

Too dunny! My sister in law is from utah (qgden) and she has no sense of humer at all. Nice to see that utah folks do not take themselves too seriously.

Let us know how you make out. The thing about mercaptans and hydorgensulfide, is that it takes one a small amount to have a big effect (parts per million). Go sparringly. you can turn this wine around!