Attempting grape leaf wine

[porcupine73]

There are some grape vines growing where I live that were taken over by weeds maybe 25 years ago. They don't seem to produce grapes, but they sure grow a lot of nice looking leaves. So in a few places I've seen some notes about making a wine out of grape leaves so I am giving it a try.

I took a six gallon stainless steel pot, and put in about eight pounds of evaporated cane juice. I added maybe a cup of honey, a cup of sucanat, and half a cup of molasses. I added some azomite. I added a few gallons of warm water and stirred it until the sweeteners were dissolved. I added a few cups of black tea.

Then I made a few trips outside with a paperbag and gathered the grape leaves. I chewed a piece of grape leaf to check it, and it tasted good, very grape like, though not sweet.

So I gathered maybe three paper-sack-fuls of the leaves and put them in the pot, then added cool water to fill the pot. Then I used a pack of Danstar Cuvee yeast I think it said.

I put a bedsheet over the pot and secured it with a string of rubberbands.

This morning when I checked it, most of the grape leaves had risen up out of the pot. So I filled a glass dish with some water and sat it on top of the leaves as a weight and then covered it back up.

I am guessing after a week or so I should then rack off the liquid into a carboy and airlock it?

I didn't sterilize anything so hopefully it will come out resembling something drinkable.

I wonder if this would be anything like what is that Italian liquor called, grapa or grappa? Though I think that must be distilled to make it as strong as it is.

 

[Arpolis]

Sounds very interesting. With this recipe it may be good to rack the liquid on top of more grape leaves to make sure the brew retains the flavor. I am wanting to do a similar wine from Oxalis plant "SheepShire". However we have been soooo hot and dry this year I have not been able to harvest much at all of the stuff. Caint wait to see how this turnes out.

 

[porcupine73]

Ah thank you. Do you mean adding some fresh grape leaves to the carboy when racking it in for the second ferment?

Hm the sheepshire sounds interesting. I hope you are able to find some.

I picked up some of the Peterson's field guides, I'm hoping to identify some other plants and herbs in my area I can harvest before the frost hits to brew. I'm looking for some of the gruits, bog myrtle/myrica gale and wild rosemary and yarrow. They're supposed to grow in my area though from the photos I can't say I've noticed them around before.

I'm thinking of trying some with black walnut tree leaf, there's tons of that around, there seems to be some indication though that it may contain a toxin.

Thinking also of trying it with raspberry leaf. There are some raspberry plants around that are remnants of fields of them my father had in the 30's/40's.