Finished wine taste to alocohol"ie"?

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docspidey

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This is not our first wine kit nor or last but this time it finished a bit more tasting like alcohol with a plain wine taste. It's a pear reisling kit which smells wonderful. No bite, bitter, just maybe flat? It's been racked 1x and ready to bottle. We did let it sit 6 months but it's definately not the first wine we've had sit 6 mo in a carboy. Any ideas?
 
I haven't made this kit, but I have made pear wine from real fruit a few times. I can tell you that pear flavor in wine is very subtle. It allows the alcohol flavors to come through more than in other wines I've made.
 
Thanks for your thoughts. My husband informed me after I posted the thread that the wine is a strawberry reisling. I guess we'll plan to bottle and see
 
Since it hasn't been bottled yet, make some kind of a strawberry flavor pac and add to it. There are instructions on this forum for flavor pac. Basically get some more berries and simmer the juice down to concentrate it. Add to the wine. You mite have to leave it in the carboy a while longer to clear again. Make sure the origional wine is stabalized before adding the f-pac. Otherwise you mite get more alcohol from the f-pac addition. Take care, Arne.
 
Perhaps you needed to rack off the wine at least one more time. Letting your wine sit too long on any dead yeast can produce a bitter wine.
 
in addition to the other comments

glass carboys do not microxygenate...that can contributes to an alcohol forefront...more aging will help but only in part....try running this same wine today thru a vinturi type device or splash rack one glass repeatedly to see how it and if it changes...also warm a glass of this up today and see if it helps.....also try it colder...by that i mean serve your sample glass chilled....sometimes that helps a delicate wine...each wine is different and you just have to try these things

have you made this kit before and got a different result this time?
 
What was your starting and ending SG? Did you add sugar up front to bump up the ABV level? Did you add the flavor pac (or part of the flavor pac) up front to increase the ABV? What was the kit?
 
The kit was ORchard Breezin Mist Wine
Strawaberry Reisling
Staring SG 1.055
Ending SG .994

We did not stray from the kit with adding sugar or anything; usually these just work and are simple; only deviation on our part this time was laziness in not bottling/reracking after 3 months.

It's kind of light and subtle, but alcohol-y at the same time. Hard to describe, but that's the best I can come up with. Not bad, just strong-ish. Thanks for any replies.

This is my first experience with this company's kit.
 
I would think this is just a young wine. It is hard to have a wine that is only roughly around 8% to have an "alcohol-y" taste it. Just let it age some and I am sure it will smooth.
 
Al, its a Mist kit and these have very low starting sg's and low abv's. Like around 6.5%. I make a few of these for my wife's friends but I always bump up the abv. Believe it or not some of these do need a little aging. Doc, try another racking if you've sulfited this wine and let the wine get a little air through it or just let it age some more.
 
thanks Wade..i dont know much about this....i would suspect then that this issue w this wine is that it is low in the aromatic part to begin with...secondly glass aging is famous for making things seem like they are less developed thereby leaving the alcohol at the fore

i fall back then on what i said earlier...splash rack a glass and see if it opens up any.....and certainly age longer
 
Thanks everyone for your help and information. We decanted off another glass and this time it tasted spectacular :) I guess aging two more days made the difference, just kidding. More likely eating something different before trying it.
 
Pairing foods will surely enhance good or bad things in the wine. Thats why its very important to cleanse your palate and try again if something tastes off.
 

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