Bitter plum wine

[koko65]

Hello all.
This is the second time that I have made plum wine from scratch. The first year turned out great. This year's batch has a bitter tang to it. Both years I have added some wine conditioner as that is how I prefer my fruit wines.

Looking back I think the big difference was that when I mashed this year's batch I made it more fine, less chunky than the previous year.

My question is, is there anything that I can add to counter the bitterness, or just add more conditioner? And, for future reference, would an acid test kit help avoid such problems?

I am just filtering the wine now so I can still do something before it goes into the bottle. I started the wine in September and have racked it several times and filtered it twice, once with number 2 and now again with number 3 pads.

Thanks for any information that anyone can give.

Onno

 

[winemaker_3352]

Plums have higher level of tannins than most fruits and the dominant acid is Malic Acid.

The bitterness could be either TA or just the tannins. My suggestion would be to let this age a while longer - tannins will smooth out over time.

 

[koko65]

Thanks for the reply. We were not planning to drink it until the summer so hopefully it will have mellowed by then. If not I can keep it in storage till next year.

Onno

 

[Winot]

Koko, I think Winemaker is dead right.

I had a similar experience with a strawberry wine. In my case, I believe that the numerous very fine strawberry seeds that occur on the surface skin of the strawberry contributed a lot of tannin. Possibly I shouldn't have used a blender to crush the berry's which may have cracked a lot of the fine seeds, or I may have left it on the lees longer than I should have due to the slow settling of the fine pulp-'slurry' during secondary fermetation. Either way, the result was a distinct annoying bitter after-taste at 6 months which I took to be tannin from the seeds. At 12 and 18 months the bitterness slowly decreased. I tasted it again today at 24 months and it is great, all the bitterness has gone or mellowed out.

So patience is the key, and make a few additional batches of other wine, so that the ones that take longer to mature you can just fugggedabuddditt for a while while you drink your other faster maturing wines. Before you know it, your Plum wine will be smooth.

Btw - I have a Plum wine that is 22 months old, and about ready. It's great as is. I plan on drinking half as is, and will hit the other half with an FPac (which I have never tried doing before).

 

[Sirs]

myself I think it is probly tannins in the skins and time will help with this almost always