Skip to content
Winemaking.net
← All varieties

Catawba

RedHybrid and native

Ohio and the Finger Lakes

Pink-skinned and musky, historically America's most planted wine grape and the base of nineteenth-century sparkling Catawba.

At harvest

Each bar drawn against the full range of all 54 varieties

Sugar

16-19 Brix

16 - 19

Titratable acidity

8-11 g/L

8 - 11

pH

3-3.4

3.0 - 3.4

Juice yield

0.65 L/kg

free run plus a gentle press

Sugar per kilogram

122 g

at 17.5 Brix, the midpoint

Fruit for 23 litres

35 kg

before racking losses

Potential alcohol

9.6-10.5%

from 1.072 fermented dry. A range, because conversion varies by strain

What it punishes

High acid at harvest. Cold stabilisation and malolactic are both usually needed.

Made into

  • Sweet white
  • Rose
  • Sparkling

Sulphite at this pH

At pH 3.20, protecting a red wine to 0.5 mg/L molecular SO2 takes 13 mg/L of free SO2. Work it out for your own reading.