6 step-by-step recipes on how to make wine from Isabella grapes at home

Not all grape varieties are suitable for making alcohol. The best grape variety is Isabella. The taste of the fruits cannot be called dessert, but they have a thick aroma that is conveyed to the drink. Grape growers have been cultivating a variety for winemaking for a long time; many recipes have been created on how to make dry and sweet wine from Isabella grapes. The prepared drink is not only tasty, but also useful, cleanses the body, supports immunity, and gives tone.

Features of making wine from Isabella

Making Isabella wine is not difficult. This grape variety is not used in the wine industry. Studies have found that in the pulp of fruits, methyl alcohol and hydrocyanic acid are present in increased concentration. However, these compounds are not capable of causing harm to the human body if consumed in moderation.

Therefore, the Isabella grape is today used only in home winemaking. Summer residents and winegrowers love this variety for its unpretentious cultivation, abundant seasonal harvests, high-quality fruiting even in non-native climatic conditions.

To prepare a drink with your own hands, you need to prepare dishes and a water seal.

The dishes are enameled or wooden, but not metal, since metal spoils the taste of the drink.

If there is no ready-made water seal, then instead of it you can use a sterile medical glove, piercing each finger with a needle in it. The function of the water seal is to release carbon dioxide from the dishes. Prepared containers are poured over with boiling water.

Before starting work, it is advisable to wear rubber gloves, since there is a lot of coloring pigment in the skin of Isabella grapes, and your fingers will get dirty.

Raw material selection rules

Isabella grapes are harvested in dry weather, until frost has come. Cut off the bunches carefully, trying not to erase the bluish bloom from the fruits, because it is it that contains yeast, without which the fermentation process will not take place.

To make high-quality wine, it is necessary to carefully sort out the fruits, remove the dried, rotten, overripe. The remaining good berries are torn from the brushes, laid out on a clean waffle towel to dry. Then they are poured into prepared dishes.

How to make wine from Isabella grapes at home

Making a drink from Isabella grapes is one of the simplest activities in winemaking. There are recipes with water and without the addition of water, as well as with yeast and using cake.

A simple step-by-step recipe without water

If you don't have time to mess around with a full-fledged preparation, then you can make Isabella semi-sweet red wine according to a simple recipe, without using water. The finished drink has a rich grape aroma, which intensifies during prolonged storage, a light sweet taste with a barely perceptible sourness.

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To make wine, take:

• 10 kg of grapes;
• 3 kg of granulated sugar.

Step by step cooking:

1. The grapes are ground in an enamel bowl by hand or using a wood pestle.
2. The dishes are covered with gauze or a thin natural cloth, put in a warm place for a week to start fermentation.
3. Every day, 3 times the must is stirred by hand or pestle to remove the foam.
4. Filter the finished fermented liquid. The cake is squeezed out well.
5. Pour the liquid into a large bottle, add the sweetener. Install a water seal.
6. The bottle is left for about 3 weeks to ferment the juice. The completion of the fermentation process is judged by a deflated rubber glove, the precipitation of yeast sediment to the bottom, and the cessation of bubbling.
7. The drink is poured into a storage container so as not to touch the sediment. Usually a thin tube is used.
8. The poured wine is hermetically sealed and sent for storage.

The classic way of making dry wine

To make dry grape wine, sugar and fruits are taken in a different proportion:

• 5 kg of Isabella grapes;
• sugar - at the rate of 50 g per 1 liter of wine must.

Step by step cooking:

1. The grapes crushed in an enamel bowl are covered with gauze and put in a warm place for a week. The fermenting mass is thoroughly stirred every day.
2. After a week, the grape mass is filtered, the juice is squeezed out of the cake.
3. The fermented liquid is poured into a large bottle. If you check it with a wine-sugar meter for sugar concentration, then at this stage of preparation the indicator should be 16-18%.
4. A water seal is placed on the bottle. Leave the wort for fermentation for 8-10 days.
5. Next, the wine is carefully poured using a thin tube into small containers so that the sediment remains at the bottom. Pour 50 g of sugar for each liter of wort. The total amount of sweetener should be approximately 500 g, add it to one of the containers, stir thoroughly until dissolved. It is important to observe the proportions in order to get exactly dry wine.
6. The large bottle is rinsed. The sweetened wort is poured back into it. Install a water seal. Leave the wine to ferment for a month.
7. After a month, the wine is drained, leaving a sediment at the bottom. They try: the drink is still cloudy, but should already acquire a rich, pleasant aroma. The bottle is washed, the wine is poured back. Leave to ferment for another 10 days.
8. The procedure for removing the precipitate is repeated. The wine should already acquire some transparency.
9. The wine is kept until precipitation for another 10 days. It turns out a transparent drink of a beautiful red color. It is poured into sterilized bottles, hermetically sealed, sent for 3 weeks to ripen at a temperature of 10-12 ° C.

Ready dry wine from Isabella grapes has a sugar concentration of no more than 0.5%.

With added water

To make Isabella wine less strong, water is used. The advantage of this preparation method is to obtain a larger volume of the drink.

The ingredients are the same as in the classic recipe. The changes concern only cooking technology.

Isabella wine is made with water as follows:

1. For 1 liter of grape juice, take 40 g of sugar.
2. The dishes with the preparation are placed in a warm place for 5 days. The berry mass is regularly stirred to remove foam.
3. Boiled water is added in an amount of about 30% of the total volume of the grape mass.
4. Pour the liquid into a bottle. Install a water seal.
5. The fermented liquid is poured, leaving a sediment at the bottom.
6. The wine is heated a little, add 200 g of sweetener per 1 liter.
7. The bottle is left for 2 months in a cool place at a temperature of 10-15 ° C.It is periodically poured into a clean dish, leaving a sediment in order to eventually achieve the transparency of the drink.

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Wine is prepared using water to balance the acidity. This recipe is used in areas with unfavorable climates, where, due to a lack of sunlight and excessive moisture in the soil, the fruits of Isabella grapes grow unsweetened.

If everything is in order with the sugar content of the grapes, then you should not use water. It will spoil the taste of the alcohol.

With yeast

During preparation, yeast is used in order to put the wine for a longer storage.

Prepare:

• 5 kg of fruits;
• 100 g yeast;
• 1 kg of granulated sugar.

Isabella wine with yeast is prepared as follows:

1. Crush the grapes.
2. The grape mass is poured into a saucepan, put on low heat. Heated to 70-80 ° C, not brought to a boil.
3. Leave the mass for 3 days for infusion.
4. Yeast is added. Press, filter the mass.
5. Pour in 0.5 kg of sweetener. Stir thoroughly.
6. They put a water seal on the bottle. Leave the wort to ferment in a warm place for several months. Stir periodically.
7. Fermented wine is poured into another bottle without affecting the sediment. The procedure is repeated several times to make the drink clear.
8. Pour in the remaining amount of sugar. Stir.
9. Bottled. They are sent for storage.

With sugar

Making a grape drink is impossible without the use of a sweetener. But the amount of sugar is adjusted taking into account the acidity level of the grape juice. You can check the indicator by taste, but it is better to use a pH meter. The rate of acidity of wine must is 4-6 g / l.

If the acidity level is not satisfactory, then sugar is added to taste after fermentation is complete.

From cake

The cake remaining after squeezing out the juice is not thrown away. Wine is also made from it, which turns out to be not as rich as the primary wine, paler, lighter, but still tasty.

It is necessary to add cake to the composition immediately after squeezing out the juice. Stale, dried grape skins are not suitable for cooking.

Ingredients are taken in the following proportion:

• 6 l cake;
• 5 liters of water;
• 1 kg of sweetener.

To prepare Isabella wine from pomace follows a standard recipe with water.

Further storage of the product

Ready homemade wine made from Isabella grapes is poured into clean glass bottles, hermetically sealed. The product is stored in a cellar equipped with racks for horizontal placement of bottles, or in another dry place where ultraviolet light does not penetrate.

Isabella wine is usable for 5 years.