Up in wisconsin I have (I, and a dozen other members of the family, though they dont know it) 10 acres of land, with about 4 acres of woods, and 5 acres of fields that haven't been cultivated about as long as I've been alive. In several areas there are wild grape vines growing. These things are so tenatious (sp) that they've killed off sap suckers by overgrowing them, and are taking over areas of the fields that are nothing but weeds, turning them into large areas of nothing but flat, ground dwelling grape vines. I was told by my father that they were mustangs (he was guessing), and having survived my first winter up there, I decided to try my hand at winemaking. This was my first batch and I followed a mustang grape recipe in a very thin, paperback, purple book that was the cheapest the homebrew store had. No idea what it was called. But the flavor of the wine was so strong my sister could only drink it by diluting it with 4 parts water to 1 part wine. I'm trying to figure out if they are just really acidic mustangs or what. They're about 1/4" in diameter, dusky looking blueish purple, the fruit on the inside is a translucent hinted with green, no purple other than the skins, but the fresh squeezed juice is a very deep purple (and stained my feet for a week). When eating them it makes your tongue feel almost numb/tingly, like when you eat pineapple, but much stronger. What do ya say?
- posted
17 years ago