Muscadine Grape Wine

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jpcoote

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I want to make a red grape wine, but I live in Louisiana and the only fresh red wine grapes I have ready access to are Muscadine. I've never tasted muscadine before, and I've heard people express reservations about using it to make wine, but I figure people wouldn't invest in growing them if they weren't any good. Anybody have any advice/opinions/input about this?
 
I suppose I should add that if anyone knows of a way to get grapes from California to Louisiana at a reasonable cost and without them going bad, I'd love to hear about this bit of magic. :)
 
I planted muscadine last year and have some to harvest now. I'm still looking for a good recipe to start. Most muscadine wine I buy has been full in body and sweet, that's what I'm looking for.
 
Muscadine is the only homemade wine I have ever had. Very popular in the southeast, very good too
 
I'm originally from Southern Mississippi and I know Muscadine wine is popular but never understood why, to me at least, it tastes nasty.
 
I am just west of you in Vacherie. Here are 2 ways to make some good muscadine wine.

This one is for a traditional country style muscadine wine that turns out very well. It will need to be back sweetened as it will ferment to dry.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f79/todds-muscadine-wine-138712/

Here is a video I made from last yrs harvest and my white muscadine. With some age on it in the bottle I really liked it.


Here is another video that pretty much is the same as the 1st recipe I posted.
 
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Sweet I've got four vines I planted last year I should get a good crop next year and I was looking for a few good recipes.
 
After the first year of planting my vine, I only harvested 2 pounds of grapes. It may take a few years to grow to bear more. It takes at least Six lbs to yield a one gallon wine. So be prepared...
 
Bayouchief said:
After the first year of planting my vine, I only harvested 2 pounds of grapes. It may take a few years to grow to bear more. It takes at least Six lbs to yield a one gallon wine. So be prepared...

I've been pinching off all the side growth and just concentrating on vine growth. I should get a good harvest next year tho.
 
Those 4 vines will give you more grapes than you will know what to do with. This yr I have picked 200lbs of Ison from 2 vines and I have 3 bronze ones I have not even touchehd yet.
 
This year I am doing some experimenting.

1st - I have 3 buckets of overly ripe red muscadines that have a PH of 3.3 and a TA of .45. With this I am going to do a 5gal straight juice batch of wine
2nd - I have 120 lbs of red muscadine that I will mix with a little elderberry concentrate during fermentation to see if I get better color stability, plus elderberry will add a nice flavor.
3rd - I will be doing an all juice white muscadine
4th - I will be doing my regular white muscadine ( as per the video) but with 3 gallons of juice and I will use a California white wine concentrate instead of the Niagra.
 
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