Maple Wine - suggestions appreciated

[ChuckD]

I have made maple wine several times. RiceGuy actually has a bottle of mine. We just happen to be at a wine competition yesterday in the Madison area. This bottle took home a blue ribbon from our peers.

Things I can tell you. 1- I don’t do a lot of testing for ph do I don’t know that one.

2- I do remember it being a slow fermentation. 6 weeks or so.

3- tasting notes. The nose is gonna be maple syrup. It has to fill the room. This one does. Taste. I used a pecan wood I toasted myself to ‘oak’ it. I might have over dons the wood. It’s pretty woodsy but it’s maple syrup. It comes from trees. Best flavor profile I can give you is it’s a lot like a cognac. Personally I like it but feel this is an acquired taste novelty wine.

If you’re ever heading to Madison look me up I can gift you a bottle.

David sent me a sample of your wine. It arrived yesterday! My wife thought it smells like maple but to me it was vanilla! Maybe even some butterscotch or caramel notes. The pH is higher than you expect from a “wine” so that’s different. As for the pecan wood, I would definitely not call it too much. It adds a nice finish but there isn’t the traditional oaky feel in the mouth. I like it, but like you said, It’s more of a novelty wine. I’m trying to think of what it would pair with. Probably something with a lighter flavor like fish.

My maple is still actively fermenting (sg about 1.010) so the CO2 messes with the taste. Take that into consideration for this comparison… At this point the color is identical. My pH is at 3.7, so with the CO2 it tastes a little sharper. Mine is very smokey tasting and I haven’t even oaked it yet, so I think that taste comes from the syrup, not your pecan wood. I think mine will definitely benefit from some oak for complexity and finish. I’ll keep a close watch on it though because I feel it could be easily overdone.

I’m saving the rest of the sample until mine is done fermenting so I can try this again.

 

[ChuckD]

44 days after pitching the yeast it’s almost done fermenting! SG is 1.002, pH is 3.69, and TA is 7.12g/L (0.7%).

should I be reducing the pH any more? Is it safe at this level with 14% alcohol?

If I didn’t know it was maple I’d say the nose is vanilla and caramel. Taste is a little sharp (it’s still off gassing CO2) but pleasant. I taste vanilla and the smokey taste is much reduced. I’m still thinking it needs a little oak and some time.

I added k-meta and topped up. I’ll add the oak and transfer to the cellar after it clears.

 

[winemaker81]

should I be reducing the pH any more? Is it safe at this level with 14% alcohol?

I would not mess with it at this time -- the wine is safe for bulk aging. Besides, it's probably not quite done fermenting.

When you are ready to bottle, taste it and adjust the acid by taste. You'll probably backsweeten at least a bit, so it may need a bit of acid to balance the sugar. Your tastebuds will direct you.

 

[ChuckD]

Maple wine… day 84!

I have been busy with other things so this is the first I’ve tested since April 15 when it was still at SG=1.002 and actively bubbling away. Today the wine is at 0.998 but still off gassing a little.

I back sweetened a small sample with a few drops of maple syrup and it’s very nice… hints of caramel and light smoke. I plan on racking this week and adding a spiral of medium toast French oak. I’m going to taste monthly because I don’t want to overdo it.

 

[ChuckD]

So today I finally racked the maple. It has finished any visible off-gassing but is still not clearing. I think there may be a protein issue. Several times I fished out tiny globular floaters from the carboy. You can see some of them deposited on the carboy.


I took them to work and looked at them under a microscope and they are not cellular… just amorphous blobs.

I think it’s going to make a nice alcoholic desert beverage. I say “beverage” because If you are expecting wine it might be disappointing. Back-sweetened with maple syrup it still has strong caramel and smokey notes. I’m moving it to the cellar for a little aging time.

 

[Raptor99]

I wonder if maple syrup has any oils or resins. If so, that may explain the globles. When I do a chocolate wine, I find some little deposits on the side of the carboy the from the cocoa butter present in chocolate.

Kudos for examining them under a microscope. I may have to add that to my list of techniques for mysterious deposits. My wife used to be an AP Biology teacher, so I'm sure she could help me identify what I see in the microscope.

 

[Rice_Guy]

the cocoa butter
Kudos for examining them under a microscope..

Cocoa butter has a melt point above room temp/ close to body temp so it will melt and recrystalize if it sits in a hot car/ shed. Maple doesn’t have a similar melt point.

Microscope is a standard lab technique, bacteria are classed into families a cocci (round) or rods or into filamentous rods (chains).
Yeast and mold are larger and can be seen with a 500x kids microscope. Molds start as spores and grow long filamentous arms.

 

[ChuckD]

I wonder if maple syrup has any oils or resins. If so, that may explain the globles. When I do a chocolate wine, I find some little deposits on the side of the carboy the from the cocoa butter present in chocolate.

Kudos for examining them under a microscope. I may have to add that to my list of techniques for mysterious deposits. My wife used to be an AP Biology teacher, so I'm sure she could help me identify what I see in the microscope.

I’m not sure what it is, the globs are actually very firm, more resin-like than fat-like.

If you have ever made maple syrup the old fashioned way, in an open pan over a wood fire, you would see that all sorts of “detritus” makes it into the sap (snow flees, bark, moths etc.). We filter before boiling but stuff flies and falls in when cooking too. Including once a gray squirrel, but that’s another story. I always joke that it’s the bugs that give it the “maple” flavor, not the trees.

The syrup I used was the later dark syrup and the last jars that had all the stuff that settles out.

 

[ChuckD]

Bottling day!

A had a case of bellisima bottles, a few 375ml “shorty”odds-and-ends, and I scrounged up whatever clear bottles I could find. About 4.5 gallons total.

It’s an interesting wine and it’s growing on me the more I drink it. It smells like caramel and tastes like caramel and a hint of maple. I actually taste a little apple too. Probably because I ran out of tartaric while I was adjusting the acid so I used quite a bit of malic.

When I drained the carboy there was a lot of deposits on the glass and a film on the top. I chalk it up to waxy resins and proteins. It took a long time to clear.