blending?

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Ken914

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I have no experience with blending wines.

In April, most of my wines will have bulk aged 6-8 months. All of them have already been f-pak'd, but not back-sweetened. I'm thinking about trying some blends in either 1g or 3g carboys. My thoughts are to blend and then let the new wine age for 3-6 months before bottling.

One that I'm going to try is a peach-strawberry. Can anyone recommend others that might be good to experiment with?
 
My blending schedule is very similar to what your proposing. I make all the wines you have listed, except the Pear. Strawberry-Peach is one of our favorites. i also like Blueberry-Elderberry, also mix blueberry with some of my reds. Not sure what others would go with your Apple [ like mine straight], or your Pear. I make a B S Peach that's a real hit. Basically it's a banana, 2 lbs. strawberries, & 6 lbs. of peaches to make 2 gals. of wine, fermented together. try small amounts of different wines blended together before you make larger batches. I need to be SUPERVISED during blending, it's just SOOO much fun! Roy
 
Blend your apple and pear. Perhaps 2/3 apple to 1/3 pear. When I make my own cider I add pears. It sweetens up the mix.

Do small sample blends first, then you can use the pearson square in the Tutorial section to help you if you would like to adjust ph/acid etc. as well.

I get ideas in the grocery store looking at the different fruit juices.

I also did 2 years ago an apple cranberry pear that was awesome. Don't recall the blend amounts.
 
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FTC - thank you. While each wine and personal taste is different, ratio do you use as a starting point for mixing?

DJ, I'll try some apple/pear! Thanks!
 
Ken, I start with 1 part strawberry to 5 parts peach, then go to 1 to 1. That's why it's so much fun. 1 to 4 usually works for us. My blueberry-elderberry is more like 10% blueberry. Roy
 
Ken, Just thinking if you have never "spiced" Apple wine you should try a bottle or 2. It's totally great at Thanksgiving with turkey or ham. I add 2 cinammon sticks broken into pieces, 6-8 cloves, & a pinch of ginger, all to 1 gal. & leave aging for a racking, 3-4 months. You could adjust to a 750 or 1.5 bottle to try. Roy
 
typically when you blend it will take a month or so to get pretty much fully integrated...start w small amounts like a gallon....let sit for a month and taste....if it shows promise then leave for another month or two more because that will tell you how it is tracking...whether it stayed teh same after one month or developed even more.....after you establish what you want then do it again w the larger amount and wait at least the same time that you did for the initial test blend

virtually every wine i make is a blend

think of blending like we were taught in school about this country...a melting pot that brought many good people together to make something unique
 
I usually start blending with three glasses and two wines. More than two wines is fine but harder to remember the ratios even if you write it all down.

In the middle glass I put a 50% mix of the two wines. The glass on the left has 75/25%, the glass on the right has 25/75% mix. Swirl, sniff, and taste, then eliminate the two worst.
As one or two have said, that's just an excuse to drink them and what makes it fun.
If you want to get serious, you can use your best blend so far as the centre glass, and change the ratios either side. Most people don't bother with that, especially with fruit wines.
Always use wines of equal quality. The one thing you should never do is to blend a good wine with a mediocre one, hoping that that the good one will improve the other one. It does not work, you'll end up bringing down the quality.
I think that if you check, most commercial wines are a blend, even the wines sold as Varietals.
Sniff taste and enjoy, that's what it's all about.
Regards to all, Winemanden. :h
 

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