Fermentation

The fermentation of the Concord wine was pretty vigorous. I drained the wine last Sunday morning into a secondary fermentation vessel, and it looks like fermentation is already done. The wine is still cloudy so it needs to clear before I bottle it. I don't know how long this will take.

Wine Making

I'm starting my first real batch of wine today. I got two pounds of black table grapes from the store and mashed them up with a potato masher. I then added two cans of Welsch's grape juice concentrate with 6 cans of water. This yields about a 20 brix must. I crushed up a campden tablet at about 2:20 PM , added 2 drops of pectic enzyme, and a fifth of a yeast packet of RC 212. I'll see how if it starts to ferment.

Propagation Experiment Results

I did a propagation experiment this spring with seedless concord and concord cuttings. I put a third of the cuttings in some moist newspaper and put them in a warm place by a heating vent. I put a third upside down outside underground with the bottoms of the cuttings near the surface. I put another third of the cuttings in a vase with water covering about half of the length of the cutting.

After a month and a half, I planted the cuttings outside. I noticed that every single cutting that was put in moist newspaper had a callous at the bottom. The ones that were upside down underground did not have any callous or root formation. Some of the cuttings in the vase rooted and some didn't. It was about a 30% root rate. I planted them all outside and only about half of the vase cuttings survived, while none of the underground cuttings survived. Amazingly, every single cutting that was put in newspaper survived and had a lot of growth the first year. From now on, I'll do only this method for propagation. It had a nearly 100% success rate!

Update

Well, it's November third now and the vines' leaves are all yellow and falling off. I had a harvestless year this year in order to get my vines pruned correctly and growing the way I want them to. I had my seedless concord and regular concord on top wire cordon which I really didnt like. It made the canopy too hard to manage and it was hard to get renewal canes to grow correct that high up. So, I cut the vines back to a foot above the ground and let little shoots push out and grow up to a 3 foot wire. I will be training them to a VSP (vertical shoot positioning) system that I think will work much better. I am slightly worried that the concords will have such a trailing growth habit that they wont grow upwards even if they are trained, but I'll have to wait until next spring to find out. I plan on using catch wires every foot above the fruiting wire to train them properly. Below is a picture of all the growth that occurred this year. It's amazing how much grew!

The two smaller yellower vines are Noiret vines. I plan on growing those two wine grapevines to produce my own wine. I also plan on putting 8 Corot Noir and 8 Noiret at another location in my yard. My plan is to grow both using both cane and spur pruning to see what pruning method to use. I will also make wine from both varietals. I will pick which one I like the best, and then remove the other varietal to make room for more canes of the one I prefer.

Next year I should be able to get a full crop from my seedless concord and my concord. They had all year with no fruit this summer to get ready. :)

Spring 2014 and Propagation Experiment

Well, I got tired of dealing with unruly canopies and leaf shading with the top wire cordon trellis system, so I decided to experiment with vertical shoot positioning with my concords. On March 28, I cut back all of the vines to a foot above the ground leaving only a trunk. Hopefully in the spring, the vine will send shoots out that I can train to VSP.

Additionally, I ordered 3 Noiret that will be coming May 5. Excited to experiment with some wine grapes on a VSP. I just have to find a place to put them.

Finally, I am doing an experiment in propagation. I am putting several grape cuttings from the concord and seedless concord in a pot with water, in newspaper in a black back by a heater, and dug upside down in a trench outside. I am going to see which is easiest to propagate. I'll be sure to get the results on the blog in about a month.