Question on Second Wines

A guy I know came back from Eastern Washington with a ton of grapes, split 50/50 cabernet/syrah. Literally, he came back with 2100 pounds. So, he gave me a bunch of the pressed skins, to which i promptly added sugar, water, etc, and started a big batch of second wines.

now, i've made grape wines from kits, and i've made wines from other fruits. But, i dont think i've ever made second wines like this. Its been fermenting away nicely since friday.

My question is, though, whether I'm supposed to pull the skins out prior to the primary fermentation being done, or let the primary finish up before racking to the secondary?

I borrowed some knowledge from beer brewing and put a nylon paint strainer bag in the fermenter before adding the skins/sugar/water, which gives me the option of pulling the skins out before hitting 1.000, if needed.

Please advise!

If it were me, I'd leave the skins in until the primary ferment was over. I'm thinking that you would get everything flavor like from the skins, and that would help balance out the effects of the sugar that you added. Try to minimize the amount of sugar that you add. An old Italian exclaimed in broken English to me about 30 years ago: "Never add the sugar". I still add some sugar/honey/sweetner if I want to get the starting SG to where I want it. Best of luck. I think your wine will work fine.