apple cran after one year

[hobbyiswine]

I made a batch of apple cranberry wine a year ago from frozen concentrate juice i picked up at walmart. 2 cans apple to 1 can cranberry. It was awful when i bottled it. The only redeeming quality was that is had about 12% abv. I popped a bottle at 6 months and it was much improved. I popped another tonight and its almost one year old. I think i could easily convince someone that this wine is a chardonay! Not a great one but not bad either. Amazing what a little time can do.

 

[Luc]

Yep a well known phenomenon.
Most wines improve by aging.

Many of my fruit wines are early drinkers but off each batch I save some bottles in my cellar and watch them improve over the years.

Best advise: make more wine then you will have more wine for aging......

Luc

 

[mkjennison]

Hobbyis,
Do you mind sharing your recipe for the wine? I am right in the thick of a current batch of apple-cranberry. Any suggestions or places you think could be improved upon?

Thanks,
Mark

 

[hobbyiswine]

My notes on that batch were not very detailed. I wrote down

3 gallon batch:
4 cans frozen apple concentrate
2 cans frozen cranberry juice concentrate
SG 1.085

I know. Not very detailed. It was only my third batch. I take better notes now. I think i used EC1118 yeast. I don't think i added any tannin or nutrient or anything else. The finished product is pretty tame. Not bursting with flavor. Like i said before it almost tastes like a lower end chard. A bit of apple but the cranberry is basically nonexistent. I would suggest adding some tannin and maybe going half apple half cranberry on the juice to get a hint of cran flavor in the final product.

 

[oldwhiskers]

Well I've made apple juice wine and ocean spray cranberry wine and enjoy both and it tasted pretty good when I mixed the two, but I haven't made a batch with both from the start.

 

[Dokki]

I've made cran apple before with similar results, tastes terrible at first but greatly improves with age. Below is a link to my recipe. If I'd change anything it would be use frozen concentrate to backsweeten and give more flavor.

http://siponthis.org/prior-vintages/2010-2/2010-cran-apple-wine/