Why it works: Grape and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,490 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Grape Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Grind and press the ripe grapes to extract the juice.
Pour the juice into a barrel.
Add 40 pounds of white sugar to the barrel.
Ferment and age
Place the barrel in a cool cellar and cover the bung hole with a cloth.
Once fermentation has stopped, seal the barrel tightly.
Let it stand until next spring, then it is ready to bottle.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,490 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Grapes
- Provide the juice and natural sugars that ferment into wine.
- White sugar
- Feeds the yeast during fermentation, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide.
The step that matters
Covering the bung hole with a cloth. The cloth lets carbon dioxide escape while keeping dust, insects and airborne contaminants out. Sealing the barrel too early, before fermentation has stopped, can trap pressure and risk bursting it.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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