Special Report for 2014
U-Pick Home Wine Making Red Wine Grape Page
| There was a lot of winter damage on many of Michigans Vineyards, but our hardy French Hybrid Red Wine grapes did fine. (The white varieties did not do as good) It looks like we will have a bumper crop of red grapes this year! Keep an eye on this page for more information. We just finished pruning the vineyard, the vines are starting to leaf out and we can see what a great crop we have.
I wasn't sure what to do with this page, and decided it would become sort of a "Red Wine Grape Blog" commenting on some of the wine related activities this year.
Our most popular red wine grapes are:
We have a very good crop on all of these this year!
These are the Home Winemakers Favorites and you can also crush and de-stem them here before you leave.
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Eastern Winegrapes? California Winegrapes?
Eastern winegrapes (French Hybrid grapes) are usually a grape that is a cross breed between American varieties and "vitus vinifera" (California grapes) so they will prosper in the colder northern climates.
In Southeastern Michigan many California grapes are shipped in and sold in lugs.
California grapes tend to have lower acidity and sometimes a flat flavor.
Michigan French Hybrid grapes tend to have a higher flavor content and higher acidity.
They both are excellent, but sometimes they are handled slightly differently.
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About April-May 2014: Did a head count of what wine I had left in the barn. Things got a little wild last fall with trying to run the vineyard with a broken leg!
Head count 2014 & what I plan to do:
2011 wine:
foch 2011 - 5g acid .9 sweeten and bottle
9549 2011- 5g acid .8 sweeten and bottle
canadice dry 2011-5g
front 2011- 5g acid .9 - sweeten and bottle
(note - just sweetnening the wine slightly will round out and balance some of the acidity - I am not sure if this wine underwent a malo-lactic fermentation or not.)
2013 wine:
foch 5 gal acid 1.1 - add mlf culture (later checked it after adding culture and it dropped to .6)
front 5 gal acid 1.3 - add mlf culture (later checked it after adding culture and it dropped to 1.0)
50% foch / 50% front 5g acid 1.2 - add mlf culture (later checked it after adding culture and it dropped to .7)
cayuga+ 10 - sweeten and bottle?
niagara - 10 5gal left - - sweeten and bottle?
concord 10 add more sugar and let ferment
cayuga 18 (2-6.5 + 5gal ??
6-1-14 Added Malo-lactic culture to the 2014 Foch & Frontenac wines.
In early May we purchased some Malo-Lactic Culture from Presque Isle Wine Cellars
A Malo-Lactic fermentation occurs after the main fermentation - maybe months later. It changes the harsher Malic Acid into the softer tasting Lactic acid and reduces the acidity. This is the first time we have used a culture - In the past we just wait until the next year and if often happens during the next year when it is warmer. If you ever find a few bubble in some of your red wine after bottling, this MLF fermentation may have happened. Anyway - using the culture guarantees that we get a good fermentation. The culture cost us about $20, and we used it for 3 - 5 gallon batches of wine.
(note - a week or so later I moved the treated carboys - shaking them slightly - and saw an active fermentation!)
Later in the fall I check acid again and they dropped a lot - see above.
6/20/14 - I was mowing grass in the vineyard between 2 rows of Marechal Foch in FULL BLOOM - WHAT A FANTASTIC SCENT!
6/21/14 - I just added 4lb of sugar to our last years batch of concord wine. The specific gravity reading is now 1040, which is a little on the sweet side to drink (although is tasted pretty good) but my intention is to make a little stronger wine. Hopefully, this sugar will ferment dry and in a few months I will sweeten it again, stabilize it and bottle it.
7/29/14 - I was just doing some work with wine in the barn. I checked the 2013 Foch and it tasted like the acid has dropped quite a bit - Very promising.
I bottled the 5 gallons of Frontenac (the 2011 that I had sweetened a tiny bit - sg 1.008) and it was excellent - a great "spaghetti red" for the table.
8/4/14 - I bottled the 6 gallons of Concord. It was sweetened to sg 1.030 and is a very pleasant concord wine.
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/6/14 - I was out in the vineyard and took some pictures of the Concord and Frontenac Ripening up. Very good crop coming in.The Concord grapes are still green and should ripen up by late September-early October. We will open our vineyard for grapes, honey and candles on Friday, September 5.
8-15-14 - I just had a vist from John & Sharon Maiuri, from Romeo Michigan. We has a very nice conversation. They have been making a lot of wine for many years from California grapes and were interested in using some Marechal Foch grapes.
It is always great to talk to other winemakers. They use plastic barrels and add oak chips to the must. I have done that many years ago and now I think I will start doing it again. John also has some winemaking equipment for sale, barrels & carboys and a few other things.
8-23-14 Vineyard is opening Soon on Friday, September 5th.
Enter our contest and win a bushel of Frontenac or Concord Grapes...
9-30-14 Order pails of red wine grapes - picked and crushed - click here...
NEW POST
I made a bit of wine this fall - during the later part of the season.About 13 gal of Foch in Early October.
15 gal Frontenac a week later. Then about 25 gal of Concord (I am not sure what I will do with all the concord)
Then about 10-15 gal of later picked Frontenac.
Then after driving around we found some Niagara & Cayuga that were still there and made a white wine combination with them. It was the only whites that we made this year.
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| This is the 25 gallons of Concord. The picture is blurry but it is just starting to ferment. |
This is Frontenac. It did not fit into one container. |
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| Pressing the wine. | The malolactic culture that I added a little later after the fermentation was done. |
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| I added oak chips directly to the frontenac that was still in an open fermentor. |
These oak spirals I dropped directly into some of the carboys to add some flavor. |
After finishing all of this, it pretty much concluded all my winemaking activities for the year.
We have some 5 gallon pails of frozen crushed and destemmed red wine grapes available to purchase. Click here for info....
Order your Pre-Picked Grapes Now!
Order your Pre-Picked Grapes Now!
Order your Pre-Picked Grapes Now!
