Italian Concord Grape Wine Fragolino Recipe

Concord grape wine (Fragolino in Italian) is a unique marvelous wine for those who have the fortunate chance to taste it. It is a red wine with an intense natural strawberry flavor distinctive to the Concord grape, called Uva Fragola in Italian, strawberry grape. Unfortunately, it has been banned in Europe and cannot be produced commercially. You can only produce for personal consumption, but it is not easy to make. If you are still curious to know how to make Fragolino wine, here is the recipe.

Disclaimer: If you are planning to make it and have never made wine, you may want to research additional information, as I am not an expert.

To try the real Fragolino, you need to know personally a skilled farmer who welcomes you to their home and is willing to share this precious wine with you.

Luckily, my cousin Roberto Lombi (the one who makes tomato sauce in a barrel) is an agronomist working with Calabria farmers. He has several grateful clients who occasionally offer him a bottle of this precious wine, which is why I had a lucky chance to try it.

Roberto also kindly shared the recipe with me, as I was eager to make it. He knew it was not going to happen.

You will not find process photos on this recipe because I never tried to make it...too tricky, as you will see.

Although I had a large quantity of Concord grape, so I made these other recipes I am sure you will like to try instead: Grape jam and Concord grape jelly.

Jump to:

• What is Concord grape?
• Ingredients
• Instructions
• Equipment
• Top tip
• 📋Concord Grape Wine Fragolino

What is Concord grape?

Concord grapes are native to North America, Massachusetts. They are very different than regular grapes. Their skin is dark blue and thicker than regular grapes. The skin is easily removed, called the skin-slip variety.

The uva fragola (strawberry grape) used to make Fragolino is similar, if not the same. In Italy, it is called uva fragola because it has a unique strawberry taste.

Although if you bite the grapes, the inside is very bitter.

So, we eat them by squeezing them out of their skin and swallowing them like a pill.

You only taste the strawberry!

Give it a try if you had a good harvest and cannot eat them all. I may do the same next year.

Ingredients

• Strawberry grapes - Concord grape
• Yeasts for winemaking
• Sulfur dioxide or metabisulphite

Instructions

Here is how to proceed:

1. Press the grapes, preferably with a destemmer crusher, otherwise with the feet
2. Trigger yeasts for winemaking. Those in its peel are rarely good
3. Macerate from 8 to 25 hours, not longer. The tannins of the strawberry grapes are not very good
4. Try to keep the temperature between 77 and 95 F - 25 and 35 C. Prepare frozen bottles to cool down if the temperature of the fermenting mass rises too much
5. Press and continue fermentation in a tank or barrel, always keeping an eye on the temperature
6. When fermentation ends (it no longer releases gas) check that it no longer contains sugar and hermetically seal the container
7. After 40 - 60 days, the wine must be decanted (using a little sulfur dioxide or metabisulphite) in a clean and always airtight container. This is to remove it from the lees, which would give bad smells.
8. After another couple of months (depending on the climate) check if the wine is clear and pleasant.
9. Bottle it and drink it !!

Hint: Before triggering the yeasts, metabisulfite must be used to kill unwanted yeasts, even during the initial pressing.

Equipment

1. Destemmer crusher
2. Fermentation bottles
3. Tank or barrel
4. Second container to decant the wine

If you are making this Concord Grape Wine Fragolino, leave your comment below I would like to hear from you. You can find more delicious ideas if you FOLLOW ME on Facebook, YouTube, or sign up to my newsletter.