Fruit wines. Sweet or dry?

[RotGut76]

I am trying to venture into the fruit wine making arena. I have successfully made several batches of Dave's DBSP.

However, being from the NY metro area. I have very little experience with what real country fruit wines are "supposed" to taste like as they are hard to come by in this area.

There is a local apple orchard that makes their own hard cider that is really amazing. Just recently they offered their own apple wine.

The wife and I found the wine to be just OK. Nothing really special about it. It was kind of like a pinot grigio with a hint of apple. Pretty dry too. I'm not sure if I even really liked it.

Obviously everyone's tastes/preferences are different. So on to my question(s)...

In general are fruit wines supposed to be sweet? Could they be done dry or semi-sweet with good results?

My friend is a steadfast merlot guy. He has a fondness for EXTREMELY dry wines. A local winery makes a Gamay Noir that literally drys your mouth out upon contact. It is a great, very unique, wine and this person loves this stuff.

So when I gave him a bottle of the DBSP he said, "I liked it but it was not dry enough for me, too sweet"

That got me thinking about this subject. I personally like fruit wines to be sweet. That's why I'm having issues trying to imagine fruit wines that have the characteristics of normal grape wines like dryness or oak aging.

The 2 fruit wines I have in secondaries right now are an apple wine and one I call "Fall Harvest" because it is a super secret mix of various fruits that I got from the local farm stand for free.

At this point they have gone through the fermentation process and the last hydrometer reading I took before racking to the secondary was approx .998. I tasted both of them. To me they don't taste very good. Nice fruit flavor but very, very dry. They have only been in the secondary since this September so they are still very new.

Anyone here ever experiment in this area?

Can this ultra-dry stuff be bottled/aged as is? If so, will it improve with age?

Or is back sweetening inevitable?

What is the "norm"?

Any feedback, ideas, criticisms etc. would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[iVivid]

I don't think there is a norm. I follow the DB recipes pretty closely. But I don't sweeten as a norm anymore.
Most (if I do) is only 1tsp per bottle. To me that is a sweet wine!
To others, it is not.
My preference is for heavy dry reds. Amarone, Syrah etc.
But I LOVE my fruit wines, and make them dry, but add up to that 1tsp.
That 1tsp brings out the fruit flavour beautifully, just how I LIKE IT.
I think ANY wine is TO YOUR TASTE! Make it how you like it...
Thats the fun. I make a DB for my friend who is a sweet tooth, she loves it.
To me it tastes like syrup!
Please YOU, and enjoy

 

[Arne]

Draw a glass. Add a bit of sugar. Still too dry, add a bit more. Stir it in good every time you add. Bet you will find a spot where you like it. When you find a spot where you like it, you can bring the rest of it up to the same spot by measuring the specific gravity. Then add sugar to the rest til the gravity gets where you want it. Be careful when getting close to the right s.g. as it is easy to go over it. Also, make sure you stabalize the batch before you sweeten it. This doesn't count for the glass full, just when you go to sweeten the whole batch. Arne.

 

[Stressbaby]

I think it depends on the fruit.
I like my wines dry and I've made persimmon wine which is good without any sugar. I'm oaking 2 gallons of elderberry at the moment that won't need backsweetening either.
Most of the other fruit wines I've made have improved with just a little bit of backsweetening. I usually find that I like around 50g/gallon; that is enough to get the SG generally back up around 1.000. A couple, like banana and carambola, needed somewhat more.
I have not found that fruit wines do not undergo a dandelion wine-like transformation while aging in the bottle.

 

[seth8530]

Typically, fruit wines are made to be sweet/semisweet.. But please do not feel bound by such rules. I myself, am not a big fan of sweet wines therefore I tend to make even my fruit wines on the low end of semisweet when possible.

 

[Pumpkinman]

I agree, it really is about what you like. My wife enjoys our fruit wines to be semi sweet, I made a few a bit sweeter, but we've settled on semi sweet, this doesn't have to stop at fruit wines, I back sweeten my moscato as well, just a hint to offset the natural acidity of the grape, and I plan on back sweetening our Catawba wine also.
I've back sweetened a Pinot Grigio that was just a bit too acidic, nothing that I tried mellowed it out, I back sweetened I believe to 1.005, the 5 gallons was gone within 2 months.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that you can make wines that are exactly like the commercial wines, it's always nice to do, or you can make wines exactly the way you prefer them, I usually try for wines that are made with our palette in mind.
As far as being from Metro NYC, I'm in the Hudson Valley, in the fall we have so many people from NYC come up to take advantage of all the farms and orchards, you can get all of the fresh fruit that you can handle!

 

[cmason1957]

My wife and I ended up with 9 gallons of strawberry wine this year. We made 6 of it like you might expect, a semi sweet. We decided to make three of it a semi-dry. The semi dry gems to be the one people like better. It smells, tastes, and looks like a strawberry.

 

[SouthernChemist]

I'd say a little sweetness goes a long way in either bringing out the expected fruit flavors or helping to deal with things like acidity.

 

[jamesngalveston]

I like a semi sweet are semi dry.....I dont care to back sweeten are use sorbate so i started tasting mine when fermenting..when it is exactly like i want it, i fortify. rather then let it go dry then trying to figure out how much sweetness,etc....and usually if i fortify i dont have to use any type of flavoring in the end process...

 

[Turock]

I think that sugar brings out the hidden flavor on fruit wines. About 90% of the wines we make are fruit wines and we always sweeten to some degree. Do some bench trials to see what you like best.

 

[GreginND]

There is no such thing as "supposed to taste like" with any wine, let alone fruit wines. For a very long time I have had a mission to make balanced dry or drier wines from many fruits other than grapes. Some have been successful and others need that sweetening. For my palate, I find most fruits generally are showing great between 1-3% residual sugar. That is not that sweet and 1% is on the border of dry.

Success with bone dry (no sugar added) fruit wines:

Rhubarb
Chokecherry
Blueberry
Grapefruit
Peach
Apple


Those that do well with about 1% sugar - tends to lift the fruit flavors

Chokecherry
Rhubarb
Peach
Pear
Cranberry
Apple
Blueberry
Citrus

Depending on your palate, more sugar may be desired for nearly any wine.

 

[RotGut76]

Thanks so much for the replies. I guess experimentation and trial and error will be needed.

I think I will start breaking up my 6 gallon ferments into different categories. And try different things. Thanks again.

 

[jamesngalveston]

GreginND is not a novice, he gives you sound advice.
Its about your palate....and if you like...not what your wife, are your girlfriend, are your friends, but you...
satisfy yourself, and the heck with those that dont like it, tell them
to go make there own wine.

 

[Arne]

GreginND is not a novice, he gives you sound advice.
Its about your palate....and if you like...not what your wife, are your girlfriend, are your friends, but you...
satisfy yourself, and the heck with those that dont like it, tell them
to go make there own wine.

LOL, James, I like your post but have to disagree a little bit. You mite want to at least make a couple of bottles the way your wife likes it. That is called all is quiet on the home front. Arne.

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

When you say "fruit wines" you are lumping them all together, that limits how you think about them. Each fruit has its own characteristics. A perfectly dry elderberry can not be compared to a strawberry that is sweetened just enough to balance the strawberry acid and aroma. You have to determine how many black raspberries you are going to add to a wine to be able to make it dry or sweet in the end. An oversweetened fruit wine is just as bad as an oversweet grape wine, if you dont like dry grape wines you might not like dry fruit wines either. I do have one firm rule, always make the wifes favorite wine first, and a big carboy full of it that she can see sitting right up front, This focuses her attention on her favorite and she doesnt seem to want to count all the other carboys behind it. If she is in a carboy counting mood just start talking about how good her batch is going to be, if she still persists start talking about how you are worried you are going to have to age it a year longer than normal, that will center her concentration where you want it, on her carboy and not all of your others! WVMJ

 

[RotGut76]

WVMountaineerJack, that is an interesting perspective. I was, in fact, limiting my thought process on this subject.

Each fruit is different and should be treated as such.

My experiments shall continue!!