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 variety of wineberry is Isabella. The taste of the fruits cannot be called dessert, but they have a thick aroma that transfers to the drink. Winegrowers have been growing the 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 healthy, cleanses the body, supports the immune system, and gives tone.

Features of making wine from Isabella

Making Isabella wine is easy. This grape variety is not used in the wine industry. Research has established that methyl alcohol and hydrocyanic acid are present in high concentrations in the fruit pulp. However, these compounds are not capable of causing harm to the human body if wine is consumed in moderation.

Therefore, Isabella grapes are today used only in home winemaking. Summer residents and winegrowers love this variety for its unpretentiousness in cultivation, abundant annual harvests, and 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.

Use enameled or wooden utensils, but not metal, since metal spoils the taste of the drink.

If you don’t have a ready-made water seal, you can use a sterile medical glove instead and pierce each finger with a needle. The function of the water seal is to release carbon dioxide from the dishes. The prepared container is doused with boiling water.

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

Rules for choosing raw materials

Isabella grapes are harvested in dry weather before frost occurs. The bunches should be cut carefully, trying not to erase the bluish coating from the fruit, because it contains yeast fungi, without which the fermentation process will not proceed.

To make high-quality wine, you need to carefully sort through the fruits, remove dried, rotten, and overripe ones. The remaining good berries are torn from the bunches and placed on a clean waffle towel to dry. Then pour 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 and without adding water, as well as with yeast and using cake.

Simple step by step recipe without water

If you don’t have time to bother with full preparation, you can make Isabella semi-sweet red wine using a simple recipe without using water. The finished drink has a rich grape aroma, which intensifies during long-term storage, a light sweet taste with barely perceptible sourness.

To prepare wine, take:

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

Step-by-step preparation:

1. The grapes are ground in an enamel basin with your hands or using a wooden pestle.
2. The dishes are covered with gauze or thin natural fabric and placed in a warm place for a week to allow fermentation to begin.
3. Every day, stir the wine wort 3 times with your hand or pestle to remove foam.
4. The finished fermented liquid is filtered. The cake is squeezed out thoroughly.
5. The liquid is poured into a large bottle and sweetener is added. They install a water seal.
6. The bottle is left for about 3 weeks for the juice to ferment. The completion of the fermentation process is judged by the deflation of the 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 disturb the sediment. Usually a thin tube is used.
8. The poured wine is hermetically sealed and sent for storage.

The classic way to make 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 preparation:

1. The grapes mashed in an enamel bowl are covered with gauze and placed in a warm place for a week. The fermenting mass is thoroughly stirred daily.
2. A week later, the grape mass is filtered and the juice is squeezed out of the pomace.
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 to ferment for 8-10 days.
5. Next, the wine is carefully poured into small containers using a thin tube so that the sediment remains at the bottom. Add 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 and stir thoroughly until dissolved. It is important to maintain the proportions so that you get exactly dry wine.
6. The large bottle is washed. The sweetened wort is poured back into it. Install a water seal. The wine is left to ferment for a month.
7. After a month, the wine is drained, leaving sediment at the bottom. They try it: the drink is still cloudy, but should already have a rich, pleasant aroma. The bottle is washed and the wine is poured back. Leave to ferment for another 10 days.
8. Repeat the procedure for removing sediment. The wine should already have some transparency.
9. The wine is kept until sediment settles for another 10 days. The result is a transparent drink of a beautiful red color. It is poured into sterilized bottles, hermetically sealed, and sent for 3 weeks to ripen at a temperature of 10-12 °C.

The finished dry wine from Isabella grapes has a sugar concentration of no higher than 0.5%.

With added water

To make a weaker Isabella wine, water is used.The advantage of this preparation method is that it produces a larger volume of drink.

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

Make Isabella wine 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 stirred regularly to remove foam.
3. Add boiled water in an amount of about 30% of the total volume of grape mass.
4. Pour the liquid into a bottle. They install a water seal.
5. The fermented liquid is poured, leaving sediment at the bottom.
6. Heat the wine 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. Periodically pour into a clean container, leaving sediment, in order to ultimately achieve transparency of the drink.

Wine is prepared using water to balance the acidity. This recipe is used in areas with an unfavorable climate, where due to a lack of sunlight and excessive soil moisture, the fruits of the 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 alcohol.

With yeast

Yeast is used during preparation to store wine for a longer period of time.

Prepare:

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

Prepare Isabella wine with yeast as follows:

1. The grapes are crushed.
2. The grape mass is poured into a saucepan and placed on low heat. Heat to 70-80 °C, do not bring to a boil.
3. Leave the mixture for 3 days to infuse.
4. Yeast is added. Press and filter the mass.
5. Add 0.5 kg of sweetener. Stir thoroughly.
6. Place a water seal on the bottle.The wort is left to ferment in a warm place for several months. Stir occasionally.
7. The fermented wine is poured into another bottle without affecting the sediment. The procedure is repeated several times until the drink becomes clear.
8. Add the remaining amount of sugar. Stir.
9. Bottled. Sent for storage.

With sugar

Making a grape drink is impossible without using 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 acidity level 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 remaining pulp after squeezing out the juice is not thrown away. Wine is also made from it, which is not as rich as the primary one, paler, lighter, but still tasty.

You need to add the pulp to the composition immediately after squeezing out the juice. Stale, dried grape skins are not suitable for cooking.

The ingredients are taken in the following proportions:

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

Prepare Isabella wine from pomace according to the standard recipe with water.

Further storage of the product

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

Isabella wine can be consumed for 5 years.