will these become wine? talk to me about Concords please

[HiDelight]

Oh I hope so because it is the first year after five years of watching these vines mature.. I have had what looks to be baby grapes! so you have to tell me they are! I have grown grapes before ..but was also growing little kids at the time so I did not pay too much attention to each phase of what was going on....

I will be so happy to eat some home grown concord grapes ..sweet skins tart centers....ice cold ...and for sure will make some jam when I get enough grapes..but before I do anything else with them (except taste them out of hand) I will be making my first batch of my own home made concord grape basement wine

I need to relive one of my fondest albiet fuzzy memories of friends family and neighbors where I grew up in a Southern Italian neighborhood ..with a Jewish family to visit ...my family had their basement wine (the Jews made the sweeter one) and all my Italian friends had theirs going ..I even had an Irish friend who made it in bottle with balloons in her kitchen...all from concord grapes that grew all over the city ..in cemetaries, by churches, on fire escapes ..(the chicken coops where there as well)

anyway I am getting excited and feeling a bit nostalgic at the idea of making this wine ..I still remember the verbal instructions and will just apply them to what I know about making fruit wine ...

but first ..will I have some grapes????

any one want to show their grapes please do ...do you make wine with them? if so any tips?

I do stuff the leaves!

where are yours growing?

I have made many fruit wines ..plum, blackberry, mead, rhubarb, but never concord grapes and never that wonderful almost brandy stuff we used to drink as kids when no one else was looking

so perhaps this is the start? I certainly have a lot of these growing all over my vines

can you give me some hope? do these look like they will grow into bunches of concord grapes ..or is it just too soon to tell?

 

[vfem]

Looks like baby grapes to me. My new grapevine which is a first year planting got those... I pinched them off so the vine would produce wine and not fruit. I have a few years to wait yet though.... so I wish you luck.

I however would LOVE to make some wine. So I'm dying to hear HOW to make wine.... I have NO idea. I was hoping to try watermelon wine this year and practice for the day we get grapes!!!!

 

[Greenthumb18]

Yep those sure are baby grapes, i have some on my grapes too, i'm also planting other 1 yr old plants that should produce in a few years.
I love concord grapes and they make decent wine from it. I think concord grapes should
ripen near August if i'm correct on that.
Do you just have Concord? .... try planting Niagara grapes they make excellent white wine and champagne.

I'll try to post pictures of my grapes this week

 

[Sylvie]

Looks like grapes to me.
I grow Concords that we started from cuttings from Dh's Grandfather's 40 acres of them. Everyone here grew them at one time for Welch's.
Easy to grow, easy for wine. Hard to mess up concord wine.

My digital camera is busted, so I will just describe where mine are growing. My little vineyard is along the drive just inside the entrance on a gentle slope. It sets in pure clay which I hilled a bit upon planting. I set in locust posts and strung heavy gauge wire. The grapes did the rest.
We got grapes the second year. Concords are a vigorous grape and don't need to be held back by pinching off the flowers or grapes like french varietals to make a stronger plant.
Year 2 was great but 3 and 4 were total bumper crops! I ended up juicing tons of it for winter mornings.

Oh! I do trim mine each March/April quite a bit. If you don't it will become a tangle that is near impossible to sort through. It doesn't lessen the crop; trimming makes a bigger, better, healthier crop. If you don't trim, you should consider it next late winter. There are many systems online to choose from.

 

[HiDelight]

You guys totally made my day!!! Thank you so much all for answering and the ideas..a round of great big nostalgic emotional hugs over what could be a really nice little grap harvest!!!! I could not believe my eyes when I saw all these little bunches ..after just seeing leaves every year and one year almost babies but they all fell off!

we were bad with that basement wine and maybe someday I can share stories ..but since this is a family board and they involved a bunch of wild unsupervised city kids ..an old convent and cemetary and ..basement wine ... I will keep them to myself for now!

all I will say is even grown ups like to re-live a little "bad" and I plan on doing it now! YAY I have concord grapes you guys! (If they all fall off now I am going to cry!)

this was very good wine actually! I still drink it when I go on trips back East ..but it is a fading art as people get into more pretentious grapes and wine making...
for me to sit on the porch ...a nice pepper biscuit dipped into a glass of this deep rich flavorful grapey (sweet or dry ..the dry you can actually add a spoon of sugar to and it is really good!) ..wine ..yum!


it was usually double fermented I bet

would you like to try to make some together? you can do small scale even in a gallon jug from what I understand.. we have plenty of time to prepare obviously judging by the size the grapes here are now

thanks so much again for validating the fact I do have some baby grapes I am just so happy! ... could not believe it ..the last time I was growing grapes I was also growing kids and did not pay close attention to what they looked like as they formed


tell me everything about growing grapes now

do I need to water them? or leave them be?

I do love fresh concord grape juice unsweetened omg that is just to die for isnt it? ice cold

 

[HiDelight]

mmmmm watermelon wine I have never tried that one!!!!

I have made wonderful plum and pear wines ..I also exploded 12 bottles of blackberry wine because I bottled it too soon and it was not done fermenting

I adore home made plum wine ice cold with a shave of ginger ..and a shot of sake ...such a beautiful drink!
I digressed on my own thread!

back to grapes

I have never made a grape pie but heard they are good

I think after the baby kiwis I plan to find and plant ....I will plant white grapes for sure I wish I could choke out English ivy with grape vines!

 

[wifezilla]

Yeah! Baby grapes!!!



Here are mine...





That's Audrey on the right and Seymore on the left

 

[Texan]

Them be baby grapes, however, custom states that you must mail off your first years harvest to me. Just PM me and I will give you my address. I will make the wine and let you know if they are worthy.

Seriously, congradulations on your vines doing the grape thing.

Google Image search is your friend in these things by the way. Anytime someone mentions something I dont know what it looks like I do a Google Image search and almost always get an answer.

 

[HiDelight]

Wifezilla I my mouth is watering looking at those grapes!

and thanks Texan I could try to squish some in the outgoing mail.. but I am thinking it would be a bit messy by the time they got there ..you could actually have some wine by the time they got there! ..all those postal machines ect...could do the smashing and then they could ferment in the holding areas ...hmm a thought

I am so happy and anxious about this ...

YAY GRAPES!!!

my fig tree is loaded so are the berries, currents ect..but ...my plum, Asian pears and cherries are all massive failures this year ...nothing pollinated them in time I guess ..so sad

so the grapes really cheer me up to see

 

[big brown horse]

Good luck to you and your wine HiDelight!! If I could get my sheep pregnant, we could share a glass over some sheep's milk cheese. I am actively seeking a ram now!