We had a good sampling of homemade wines to taste.
I think Lawson's Jug falls into the spirit of the thing.

Each bottle was wrapped so it was not known to the servers or the judges which wine they were judging.

My daughter Sonja and her friend Lori wraps the bottles and prepared the samples.
Lori sampled some as they were prepaired and declared Jeff's wine as "Yummy".

"I will have a little more, please".

The Winner

Lenoir Port Wine made in the traditional method of Portugal using Lenoir Grapes (aka, Black Spanish) from Travis Vineyards:

Picked 75 pounds of Lenoir grapes after some heavy rain in Johnson County.
Grapes dropped in Brix from 21 to 19 from a previous picking to make a blended red wine due to the rain absorption.
Starting point for Brix to make Port is 24 or higher, so my wife and I chaptalized with a simple sugar syrup to 24 Brix which yielded a Sg of 1.06.
Syrup was 5.75 cups into 6.75 gal of must.

We used RC212 yeast for maximum color extraction and monitored the Sg each day starting on the third day after inoculation.
Our target Brix was 9 to end the fermentation by shocking the must with brandy.
We inoculated the must on 9/1, and the progression as measured by Sg, correlated to Brix was:
9/3 at 20;
9/4 at 12.5 at 10am;
9/4 at 10.5 at 5pm;
9/5 at 7.5 at 9am.
Final Sg was 1.025.
Stabilize with ascorbic acid and meta bi-sulfate.
Once the yeast gets into high gear, the Sg needs to be checked frequently so as not to overshoot the target Brix.
Going below the target in this case didn't harm anything, and doing it again for 2019, we would go lower in Brix for less residual sugar.
A matter of personal taste.

We used Pearson's square formula to calculate the required brandy to bring the total ABV to 20%.
We selected Christian Brothers Brandy because it is bourbon barrel aged and the price was right for 2.33 gallons.
Total yield was 16 bottles (750mL).

The Lenoir grape is ideally suited for port wine.
It has a rich aromatic quality and jammy flavors that are best with residual sugars.
The 7.5 Brix we terminated at could go down to about 5 Brix for our taste and still yield the sweetness associated with Port Wines.
We are looking forward to this year's vintage to make enough port so that a few bottles can be aged for a few years.
We have been making wine for over five years from our fruit trees and wine kits representing world renowned wine areas.
The Port and a Red Blend using 98 pounds of Lenoir grapes was our first from freshly crushed grapes.
We wouldn't hesitate to do it again and again.

Ken and Pat Compton

A jelly with no added sugar and a Jam made with Surjell and sugar was presented. Both were received well.

New jelly on home made bread, what a delight.