Do any fruit wines compare to Red grape wine?

[ditchbanker]

OK, i'm about 9 months into my fruit wine experience. I've made some fruit wines that were pretty good. Skeeter Pee, a lemon wine that is a more traditional wine than skeeter pee, blackberry jam wine, a couple welches varieties (my white welch's was the only "bad" wine I've made so far) and apple. Many of these have come out alright to pretty good. I know that with my time line, I should JUST be completing some of these wines, but I'm still working on patience. However, as I've been expanding my tastes with store bought wines and local grape wines, I'm finding that my fruit wines are much more similar in mouth feel to white wines. I'm also finding that, on the whole, I prefer stronger red wines.

So, are there some fruits I should try to get a closer approximation of reds? Should I add additional tannins for mouth feel? Or should I just look into the various methods for creating "real" wine grape wines?

Thanks for any help.

 

[Arne]

I think elderberry mite suit you well. Maybe currant if you can get your hands on some. Chokecherry will probably work too as will black rasberry. Others will probably come on and give more ideas. Course I wouldn't know a big red wine if it jumped into my mouth, but my guess is these would come close. Arne.

 

[roblloyd]

I don't think you can compare a fruit wine with a big red grape one. I've had some really good fruit wines (from Wade and a local place) including elderberry and while good it still didn't live up to grapes.

If you were to buy a bottle of wine what would you buy? What kinds do you prefer? I think those need to be answered before we can really answer what you should try next.

merlot, pinot noir, syrah, etc
dry, semi-dry, sweet...

just some of my thoughts.

 

[deboard]

Black Currant is the only fruit wine I've had that compared to a red grape wine. Even dry it is great.

 

[Arne]

Actually maybe I shouldn't of jumped in on this. I really do not know wines. I have always been a beer drinker, and until a couple or three years ago never drank very much wine. Now since then, have been tastin a lot of it. A lot of the commercial wines I have had I do not care for. Course I have not had many of them and most have not been very expensive. On the other hand, most of the wines I have made have been better than the commercial ones in my opinion, but I am compairing grapes with apples, cherries, strawberries, currants, chokecherries, elderberries and other great fruit flavors. Maybe it is still the kid in me but I like most of the fruit wines better. Course I am 62 years old and my taste buds mite be shot along with some other things. Anyway, I try and help and wish you the best of luck with your expermenting. Listening to the folks on here helps you make some wines that are exceptional. Hope yours winds up that way. Arne.

 

[buddy]

Last year was my first experience with making chokcherry wine. Not knowing which recipe to make I ended up making three different recipes.
One was a blend of chokecherry with grape concentrate, another was chokecherry with raisins, and the last was a chokecherry dessert wine from Jack Kellers recipes.
The comments I get from the first two wines is that the taste is indiscernible from wines made from grape, even though the addition from grapes in both those recipes were minor.

 

[WineyMike]

I've only been making wines for 3-4 years but I have found that I have been much happier with kit wines than fruit wines. I'm a BIG fan of shiraz and the only fruit wines that give me that same depth of flavor are elderberry and juneberry(serviceberry). Blueberry is pleasantly light, blackberry is interesting but peach and watermelon have been disappointing. Apple is OK but too tart in the long run. I'm making 2 batches of apple this year: 1 with reduced acid blend and 1 with brown sugar & cinnamon sticks in primary. I just found out today that I will be making 6 gallons of concord (free grapes). Last years wasn't that good but these seem to be riper and sweeter so why not?

 

[ditchbanker]

As far as my taste in wine, Cab is almost always a winner, a good syrah is a delight, most Malbec's are great (although the bottle I bought for tonight ALMOST tastes like something alive (cherry?) has been around it... earthy, smoky granit-y are all great, but SOMETHING floraly/fruity would be great... didn't even know I knew what granite tasted like until I tried this wine...) recently tried a cab franc that I enjoyed, although it's been the only one. I've had sangiovese and nebbiolo I've liked but haven't had enough experience with the grapes to say I always like them.

Thanks to everyone else for the suggestions, I'll have to look into those.

 

[kfrinkle]

I would take rhubarb or blackberry wine over grape wine any day of the week.

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

You have to make them correctly, just as you do grape wines, to be good. You can make a flat low body grape wine just as easily as anything else. The grapers argue over which grape is better, how long to crush etc so your question is very general. Most people who make fruit wines are making it because it tastes like the fruit just like people who make grape wine make it because it tastes like grapes. I think a better question would be what fruit could you use to make a good red fruit wine? The easiest ones for beginners would be blackberry, black raspberry and elderberry, hard to make bad wine from them. One thing I always thought was funny was when they describe a grape wine it has cherry flavors, a hint of apple, a taste of cassis on the back of the throat etc. I can blend all of those flavors together in one batch, and even add some grape juice too so there is a grapey flavor

Crackedcork

 

[Midwest Vintner]

If you make a dark wine, such as blackberry, elderberry, black currant, etc, you can get results that are similar to some red wines. Heck, look at the descriptions of some of them. You will see how they describe their red wine. "Tastes like...." "You get hints of..." Etc.

 

[ditchbanker]

Excellent points, guys, I don't think I was specific enough in what I was looking for. I like the complexity of red wines. I like trying to get all the flavors I can from the smell and the taste, and I like a heavy taste in my mouth and a rich sense of the tannins. Should I be looking into making fruit wines with with a variety of fruits to get that?

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

You can do a blend, blackberry and elderberry, elders and raspberries, berries and currants, add some oak, add a lot of berries, you can even add some extra light dried malt extract to boost the body. CC

 

[deboard]

Excellent points, guys, I don't think I was specific enough in what I was looking for. I like the complexity of red wines. I like trying to get all the flavors I can from the smell and the taste, and I like a heavy taste in my mouth and a rich sense of the tannins. Should I be looking into making fruit wines with with a variety of fruits to get that?

The heavy taste you mention is the body of the wine, and I am a big fan of that too. Grapes are used for wine for many reasons, but the biggest ones are sugar content, body, and tannins (not to mention the natural yeast in the old days). You probably won't find another fruit with this perfect combination.

You can add glycerin to build up the body of a fruit wine, some folks also use a banana soup recipe that's running around the forum somewhere. I almost always add glycerin to fruit wines.

For the tannins, you can add tannins to your must beforehand, and I generally add a lot to mine(not more than recommended on the container though). Oaking, either through barrels, staves, cubes, or chips will add tannins as well. Generally, balanced tannins will allow you to drink your wine earlier, while an abundance of them will require some aging to let them mellow out a bit.

 

[vin_man]

What is your recipe for blackberry Jam wine??

 

[ditchbanker]

The blackberry jam wine was based on this recipe I got from another forum:

3 jars(16 oz) Walmart seedless BB jam
1 lb sugar
1 tsp nutrient
2 tsp acid blend
1 tsp pectic enzyme
1 campden
1/8 tsp tannin
cuvee

However, as I'm prone to doing, I overdid something. Sugar. I didn't follow the recipe on that because, obviously, I wanted to get it to the right SG. However, in "getting" to the right SG I WAY overshot it and had to water it down quite a bit to get it to a point that the yeast would stand a chance at getting it to dry. It ended up thinner than i'd have liked, but still had good flavor (even with an ABV higher than intended... I overshot sugar quite a bit).

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

If you used 6 or more jars of jam you might not have to add any sugar and have a lot more blackberry taste. Crackedcork

 

[docanddeb]

When you use high amounts of fruit, or all fruit and almost no water, you will get a much "bigger" feel to your wine. Much of the fruit wine sold is very low on fruit.
I would agree that blackberry, black currant, elderberry, rhubarb and blueberry are very good... IF made properly, allowed to clear naturally and aged appropriately. There are good recipes and bad. If I have free fruit, I usually try at least 2 different ways before scrapping the whole idea. It's also not a good idea to judge before the 1 yr mark... longer for some. The "big reds" you buy in the store aren't 3 months old, so no reason to think YOU can make really good wine in that time frame.
Playing with oaking and some spices can really enhance the wine as well. I made some Cherry aged with vanilla bean that is quite nice.
Mead or Melomel will give you a better "mouthfeel" as well.
There are many tweaks that need to be tried, over time, to fine tune a wine to suit YOU... and if the other guy doesn't like it... so what! It's YOUR wine!

That's half the fun... making it better EVERY time! Take good notes, it helps to reproduce or improve on previous wines.

Debbie

 

[Russ Stewart]

I made some blackberry wine this year that was really good - it tasted like a good semi-sweeet grape wine. I also blended part of my blackberry wine with catawba wine and this was a really good combination. I like this better than the straight blackberry or the straight catawba wines.

 

[vin_man]

Thanks for that recipe!