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Drink

Grape Wine

A method for making wine from grapes by crushing, fermenting, and aging.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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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 grapes

  1. Remove grapes from the bunches, discarding any imperfect ones.

  2. Bruise the grapes in a large wooden or stone vessel without mashing the seeds.

  3. Let the mixture sit for 24 hours.

  4. Press out all the juice and transfer it to open jars.

  5. Remove any scum that rises to the surface.

Ferment

  1. Pour the juice into a clean cask and add 2 pounds of sugar for each gallon of juice.

  2. Add more sugar if the juice is very sour.

  3. Loosely place the bung in the cask and let it sit for 3 weeks.

  4. Tighten the bung and let it stand for 6 months.

Bottle and store

  1. Carefully drain off the wine, bottle it, seal, and store in a cool place.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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 yeast that ferment into wine.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast to produce alcohol and balances the juice's sourness.

The step that matters

Keeping the seeds intact during bruising. Crushing or mashing the seeds releases bitter tannins and oils into the juice, which can make the finished wine harsh and astringent.

“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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