North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Rob Halgren <halgren@msu.edu>]

> Rob:
>
> Have you made fruit wines?  My real question is about using pure juice 
> to make the wine or adding water to it.  The majority of recipes that 
> I'm finding online call for equal amounts of juice to water.  I'm 
> assuming adding water will increase the amount of sugar needed to be 
> added to get to a specific gravity of 1.090.  (I usually am happy with 
> 1.085...)  Adding water also seems to me that it'll create a lighter 
> body wine.

Well, I started with beer about 15 years ago, but I've switched to 
making wine over time.  It is more fun, I think.  I've made several 
batches of wine (grape, apple, and honey/mead).  Apple wine (or cider) 
is always good, so I try to make a batch of that every fall.   Mead is 
not bad, but the best meads I've made have been flavored with fruit 
(raspberry ginger mead is excellent).  I haven't had enough extra fruit 
yet for a pure fruit wine.  Waiting for my elderberries to get to 
bearing size.

I'd say that the recipies you see on the internet are trying to stretch 
their juice to save money.  Everything I've read about wine (grape or 
other fruit) would indicate that the pure juice is the way to go. Some 
people add grape juice concentrate (white or red, as appropriate).  Or 
apple concentrate.  I've never tried either one...

Of course, my taste is towards heavier wines.  And I like my coffee 
black, with the spoon sticking straight up.  Others may not like that... 
If you want a light bodied wine, then adding half water and more sugar 
is probably not a bad way to go.  You still need to get to a suitable 
alcohol concentration for preservation purposes, but sugar won't give 
you much taste.  Personally, I'd do what they used to do in times of 
old, ferment and store it strong and dilute it with water for serving.

If you like a dry wine, specify that to your purveyor of yeasts.  The 
yeast strain probably has more to do with the final sweetness of the 
product than the amount of starting sugar.  Some yeasts ferment to very 
high alcohol content.  I've used champagne yeast for apple wines, which 
result in a very delightfully dry end product.  You can get cider yeast 
in 'sweet' or 'dry' varieties, but I prefer the champagne.  I don't like 
sweet wines, but I know people who have added various sweeteners after 
the fermentation is done (including non-fermentable things like 
nutra-sweet or saccharine - ick...).

That's just my opinion... I could be wrong.

Rob
--
Robert G. Halgren, Ph.D.
Bioinformatics Specialist
GTSF - Michigan State University
http://genomics.msu.edu
(517) 353-7236    -   halgren@msu.edu