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!!
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!!