Muscadine Nectar,or Drink, or Wine

I’ve started my yearly batch of muscadine wine . The process is something like this:
1) Pick and wash the fruits
2) Put sugar in the selected containers
3) Put muscadines in on top of sugar.
4) Pour boiling water to fill the container
5) Cover lightly. (I use cheese cloth doubled)
6) Wait

After a week or so, you will notice bubbles rising . You will begin to smell a delightful muscadine fragrance. Over a period of a few weeks, the sugar on the bottom will disappear. You can taste it now. When it reaches the desired strength, cap and put in refrigerator to stop fermentation. It will be wonderful for Thanksgiving. This is the process if all goes well. I have had some different outcomes.
The last 2 years I have made vinegar instead of wine. I guess I might have used some of it in a vinegar dressing, but in disappointment I just threw it out. This year I added a pinch of baker’s yeast to one jug to sort of hedge my bets. I’ll let you know how it comes out. The yeast for fermentation is naturally occurring on grape hulls but pouring boiling water on the fruits might destroy some of it.
Another year I put the top on the jug too tightly while the brew was working. It was in a half gallon wine jug. I had been busying around the kitchen where it was brewing and had gone out to the porch for a second. Talk about serendipity! The jug exploded! Glass and muscadines and juice blew everywhere-even into the other room. Some workmen I had in the house came running, thinking a gun had been discharged. When they found out all was well, they began a lament about the loss as the fragrance was so wonderful. I was so lucky not to have been in the area when it exploded as I would surely have been cut.
This recipe comes to me from my maternal grandmother. She would make this concoction and innocently seal the jars. But to make sure things went in the intended direction, she would later lift the lids a bit so the fermentation could start. By Thanksgiving when she was ready to serve it, she would react in surprise to the now wonderful wine. She usually made it in quarts. I wonder if smaller batches work better. Maybe I will try that….