Black muscadine port

[GeneDaniels1963]

Last year I made a muscadine port at 22% ABV. I opened the first bottle tonight to share with a friend who loves port wine. It was deep, rich, and really good! I can hardly believe how good it is. I made 4 bottles of port, I will drink two this year, and save 2 for the future. If it is this good now, in another year or two it will be amazing.

I want to make some more port this year to make sure I always have some ready to drink.

 

[jonereb]

Wanna share you port recipe? Or offer a few tips?

 

[GeneDaniels1963]

Wanna share you port recipe? Or offer a few tips?

Here is what I did in a 2 gal ferment bucket:
8 lb crushed fruit (I used wild yeast)
16 cups boiled water
2 1/4 cup sugar
SG BRIX 20
After 4 days remove skins, and add 2 lb more fresh crushed fruit + 10 oz honey
Est SG BRIX 23-24
Stopped at about 13/14 BRIX by racking into 1 gal jug with 1 part brandy to 2 parts juice. In other words 5.5 cups brandy with the rest juice = aprox 22% ABV
Allow to set 2-3 days to confirm yeast are stopped; then bottle. Age at least one year, another year would probably be perfect.

Alternately, you could ferment to dry then back sweeten with grape concentrate or Ribena syrup before adding the brandy.

There are lots of ways to calculate how much brandy to add, I do mine this way for example:

If wine is 10% ABV, I do 10% + 10% + 40% (brandy); 60 divided by 3 parts = 20% ABV. And 18-22% ABV is a good target for a port according to what I have read.

 

[jonereb]

Thank you. I'm filing this away for future use.

 

[WTD]

did you make the brandy too?

 

[GeneDaniels1963]

No, I do not distill