I had a go at making my own pure grape juice wine a couple of weeks back. I have a reasonable amount of experience of making country wines and homebrew brews but I have never done "proper grape" wine before.
Not having too much reference material, I think I juiced the grapes too early which lead to a low initial gravity of about 1035 (instead of a more recommended 1085 - I increased this via the addition of sugar) but also the acidity is quite high too. The juice has now fermented out and I had an initial tasting - it is generally very sharp and a little lacking in flavour.
I am basicaly wondering how to improve it. My thoughts on this are,
1) Add a 1/2 oz or so of precipitated chalk and see how much the sharpness decreases. Depending how this goes I would continue until a more acceptable level is reached. If I do this how long do I leave the chalk in for? Do I rack off afterwards or leave to a certain period?2) Or instead of drinking this wine "straight" use it to blend with other wines (perhaps still doing step 1 above too?)
Any thoughts on either of these or other ways to improve it? Much appreciated!