WineXpert How do I sweeten my Cabernet Sauvignon kit?

How should I sweeten? I know I should first put the sorbet but now what?
I love sweet wine

We back sweetened 2 Winexpert Kits this summer and they both turned out great. After the wine was finished and aging in their carboys for 3-4 months we just added about 5 cups of sugar to each carboy tasted it to see if it was to our liking then bulk aged them for another 8-9 months and bottled.

Will

YIKES...sweetening a Cab.

I can't condone that, sorry...

The Winexpert kits we back sweetened was California Symphony and White Merlot. I personally like the Cal. Sym. the best. Great white grape taste.

Will

Ok how do u sweeten any kit in general?

Just boil water and sugar? But what are the amounts

I would recommend you pour about five glasses of your wine. Leave one as is, add 1/4 tsp sugar to one, 1/2 to the next, 3/4 to the next, and 1 tsp to the last one. Stir until dissolved. Sip them and see which you like best. Then scale up to 6 gallons to determine how much sugar you will want.

Great idea! Any other suggestions guys?

Since one of the primary flavors recognized in a hearty Cabernet is Black Currant, might I suggest adding @1/2 lb of dried Black Currant to your batch (presuming 6 gal.) in the secondary, much as you would do with, say, oak chips.. Let 'em steep for about a month or so then rack them off and continue aging. I had experimented with 1lb dried black currant in a 6 gal batch of Malbec and though it turned out delicious, I would use a lesser amount next time. Sg went from a dry .991 to an off-dry .996. Amazing that when you start liking dry wine (and you will), even a couple of points will be noticeable. Sugar as a sweetener is the easiest, but I like to use a component of the particular wine as the enhanced flavor can help give the perception of sweetening... Have fun

1 cup of sugar will raise the SG of 6 gallons of wine by about .0035

Dry wine is SG of 1.000 or less
Semi is 1.000 to 1.010
Sweet is 1.010 to 1.020
Dessert is 1.020 to 1.030

Add about 1/2 the sugar you think you want. Stir.
Wait a week (this gives time for the sugar to fully hydrate and incorporate.
Stir and Sample the wine
Repeat until you are short of what you like.
Wait a few months
Sample again

You could always try sweetening with a Cabernet concentrate from homewinery.com.

BeginnerMark said:

How should I sweeten? I know I should first put the sorbet but now what?
I love sweet wine

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I recommend do NOT sweeten it. Just make it like a traditional cab. Give it away to friends for xmas and your next kit pick up an island mist, dessert wine, or a moscato.

follow sour grapes technique but use sugar syrup. make syrup two cups sugar to one cup hot water mix in blender cool and use for bench trials. sugar syrup will intergrate better with final wine. water of sugar syrup will not affect final results. if necessary make a small batch about 500ml of final blend and let it sit for a week and then taste test again. also add sorbate to sample bottle.

Beginner Mark,

I think you can see that you're getting mixed responses. The reason for that is that a traditional Cabernet is always made dry. But everyone acknowledges that you can make your wine however you want, even sweet.

There are some varietals that better lend themselves to a sweet red:
Lambrusco
Island mist reds
Orchard breezin' reds
Summer Breeze reds

So, the choice at hand is whether to go "against the grain" so to speak, and make your traditional cab into what you like to drink. Or to make your cab in the traditional dry way, and then make something else that is really designed to be sweet.

In terms of traditional dry cabs, you also should age them to get to a year or more, to get to their true potential. Whereas, the sweet Mist/Breeze kits are really designed to be consumed at four weeks. They have some nice flavors like cherry or berry cabs.

Essentially it's up to you, but the folks in the forum are pointing out that that would be a choice to go a different direction than, say, a commercial cab which is dry. If you've had a commercial cab in the past it was surely dry. Cabernet is an epically great wine made in the traditional way, with lots of tannins, and aged to a year+; so it's really tough for anyone to tell you to shortchange what could be fantastic.

The amount of time it takes to make and age the wine is something I didn't understand when I started. So I ended up making a mist-style cranberry malbec first as an early drinker, as well as a few whites, then making other "big" dry red kits to age for a year. It means you'll have to have a few batches going at once in order to have stuff to drink now and later.

Good luck, whichever you decide!

Heather

BeginnerMark said:

Great idea! Any other suggestions guys?

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Couple of things from my perspective.

A. do not sweeten this type of wine
B. I never use the simple syrup setup to sweeten as you are diluting the flavor and ABV with the added water. When I backsweeeten, I add straight sugar to the desired SG.

Just my .02

Thanks guys for the help! My goal is to make a sacramental wine. Something moderately sweet, full bodied, and somewhat alcoholic. Of course it must be a Red Grape Wine! Any other suggestions? Think of something like manischewitz wine except a little sweeter or king David wine kosher

Bump^ anyone?

I think you would be better to make an Island Mist kind of kit. They come in red wine varietals and are fairly sweet. Easy and quick to make.

BeginnerMark said:

Thanks guys for the help! My goal is to make a sacramental wine. Something moderately sweet, full bodied, and somewhat alcoholic. Of course it must be a Red Grape Wine! Any other suggestions? Think of something like manischewitz wine except a little sweeter or king David wine kosher

Click to expand...

I think I'd back sweeten with concentrate, and maybe a tad bit of water to keep it from being too thick. Just my $0.02 - in my experience, sacramental wine isn't exactly high in body and mouthfeel.

If you proceed to back-sweeten a Cabernet Sauvignon (which is just this side of winemaking sacrilege ), I would use dextrose instead of table sugar. Dextrose (corn sugar) breaks down more easily in a finished wine - sucrose (table sugar) is a slightly more complex sugar which may not break down and dissolve as completely. You don't want a sugary sludge at the bottom (like you might find in Kool-Aid or powdered lemonade mix). Some of the first kits I made had a package of dextrose included for chaptalization (raising the alcohol level ofr fortified wine). On the other hand, table sugar works fine if you add it at the beginning to raise the alcohol level as an active fermentation seems to ensure the sugar is fully broken down.