Maple Wine

[SarahRides]

Last fall I started a 3 gallon batch of maple wine using Grade B Dark Maple Syrup, and used orange juice for acid. It has been clear for several months and decided to take a taste and backsweeten today. I used a small bottle of more Dark, Grade A syrup to bring it up to a SG of 1.004. I'm pretty impressed with it! It is probably more of an after dinner wine (but not really sweet like a dessert wine). It smells more maple than it tastes, but is still pleasant! It isn't terribly fruity, but definitely isn't bland. I'm going to put it in the line-up with all the other wines to be bottled in a few weeks, and let it age there until the fall, then give it another try. Anyone else try using Maple syrup?

 

[TXfanatic]

Sara,

Would you mind posting your recipe? I have several gallons of maple syrup left over from 2010 and 2011 seasons. Last year was good to me so I would like to use the "old" stuff for some wine.

Thanks Steve

 

[Runningwolf]

Glad to hear how it turned out Sarah. I actually used cut up oranges in mine and also added honey. I was not happy with the way it turned out. I blened a bit in the apple wine I made and dumped the rest. That was an expensive batch gone bad.

 

[SarahRides]

Sorry it took a few days. Now that I'm in my basement with my laptop, here it is! I'm horrible at writing things down, I usually add ingredients until I get numbers I like, but here's what I did. This was for a 3 gallon batch.

Approximately 2 gallons water
Dark Grade B Maple Syrup to bring up to a SG of 1.080 (it took me about 3/4 of a gallon)
2-ish cups pulp free orange juice
Acid blend to pH of 3.6 (I have written down that it took 2 tablespoons + 4 teaspoons, but I would test pH just to be sure)
3 tsp liquid tannin
3 tsp yeast nutrient
1 1/2 tsp yeast energizer
Premier Cuvee yeast (I used this because I had NO idea if it would actually ferment, so I wanted something hearty, if I did this again, I might use something like D-47 just because I use these for my meads, and I feel like is similar to a mead).

Good luck, you'll have to let me know how it turns out!

 

[TXfanatic]

Thank you Sarah

I'll be sure to post the outcome

Steve