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Grape Wine

A homemade wine made by fermenting grape juice with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and grape 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

  1. Bruise the grapes.

  2. Press and strain the juice.

  3. Add 3 pounds of sugar to 1 gallon of juice.

Ferment

  1. Pour the mixture into jugs.

  2. Leave the jugs uncovered until foaming stops.

  3. Cover the jugs with a cloth.

  4. Let the jugs stand until October.

Strain and bottle

  1. Strain the mixture again.

  2. Transfer the strained mixture to clean jugs or bottles stored in a dark place.

  3. Add more sugar if necessary.

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. Sugar + grapetop 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

Grape juice
Supplies the fruit flavor and the natural sugars that yeast ferments into alcohol.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and provides extra sugar for fermentation, which produces alcohol and carbon dioxide.

The step that matters

Cover the jugs only after foaming stops. While fermentation is vigorous, it releases carbon dioxide and foam. Covering the jugs too early can trap gas and pressure, so leaving them uncovered until the foaming ends lets the active fermentation finish safely.

“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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