Elmer said:
I have to admit that in terms of backsweetening, I am a complete noob!
My one attempt at sweetening was about 7 years ago, with a zin blush. In my ignorant noobish state, I sweetened way too much. From that time on I usually let all my wines go to dry and drink what I have.
I am weary of oversweetening. but I am always willing to try again.
That being said, can I back sweetening with welches 100% grape juice, or similar juice made from concentrate?
Or is it best to use concentrate?
If you add the concentrate you're not diluting the alcohol content and you're enhancing the flavor profile of the wine, not completely changing or diluting it.
That being said, prepare for a rant:
I have used juice and other beverages to change the sweetness and flavor of my wine. When i am going to do this, I wait until it has stabilized and add the juice and wine straight to the bottle. That way I dont have to worry about ruining the whole batch.
Most of the time I will actually set aside a 1 gallon jug at bottling time which will give me 5 bottles to experiment with later.
The thing to remember when doing this is that you are actually diluting the wine so if you start with a bottle thats 12% Alcohol and end up adding 370 milliliters of juice to it, you now have 6%. I guess it's more like a wine cooler or spritzer in this form.
My wife does not like wine with high alcohol content. Her favorite wine so far is the first batch I ever made, a vintners harvest coastal white which was backsweetened with something like 7 or 8 cans of welches grape juice concentrate and then dilluted by 50% with Sprite during the bottling phase. (Obviously I only did this with "her" half of the bottles.) I'm sure the purists on here would have a lot of negative things to say about it, but during my bench tests, that was how she liked it.
The way I look at it, it's your dang wine. Your bottle with your label made with your equipment. Make it taste the way you fricking want it to taste. (Just avoid making bottle bombs.)
If you like juice diluted or sprite diluted or cranberry diluted wine, bottle it and slap a label on it.
Edit: If you do add juice make sure it's juice with preservatives in it. The way I look at it, if it has to be kept refrigerated BEFORE opening, I don't use it.
Edit 2: Nearly all large label beer brands dilute their beer with water. It's practically a standardized practice. And millions of people enjoy their beer that way. You never hear someone complain after cracking open a beer about how they wish Mochler Beverage used better brewing standards. They just enjoy it.
End rant.