Has anyone here made homemade wine from wild grapes?

[TheWraith]

Short version: this year has seen a massively bumper crop of wild grapes around my area of western New York. If I had the time, I could probably bring in 60 or 70 pounds without going more than a five minute walk from home.

I've already been experimenting lately with doing my own apple schnapps, so I figure I'm going to make some wine. There aren't as many good recipes I've found online for wild grapes, so I'm looking at going by ear. Does anyone have experience they could share? I'm fairly sure these are Fox grapes.

[Denninmi]

1. I've made jelly (don't drink, sorry) from wild grapes.

Our dominant wild species here is Vitis riparia, the "River Bank" Grape. Smaller fruit, but no "foxy" flavor.

Not any different than using Concords or other domesticated grapes (Vitis labrusca cultivars, V. vinifera or their hybrids). And, of course, the Fox Grape IS V. labrusca, just the original wild species.

The only thing I have to watch out for in making jelly or just juice to drink from Concord and other V. labrusca varieties, or the wild ones, for that matter, is that they produce enormous amounts of tartaric acid crystals a couple of days after juicing. So, I always put the extracted juice into a pitcher and let it sit in the fridge for about 48 hours -- I usually have about half an inch of crystals on the bottom of a 3 quart rubbermade pitcher.