my wine lacks flavour

[fassiman]

Hi all, i'm new to winemaking so may have made some mistakes with my first efforts, i had decided to make my wines from fruit from my garden as i cant eat it all so this seemed a good solution. the first wines (started in august) are apple 2 gallons and pear 2 gallons also a mixed fruit blackberry,apple and pear which is the first to be bottled, i did not take readings of specific gravity as i didnt realise the importance of it and thought i would only need a "final" reading to tell me the alcohol content. The apple wines are still fermenting and have not cleared yet as i was adding the sugar in stages, the pear wines have cleared completely as all the sugar was added when transferred into the demi johns and they have stopped fermenting. The mixed fruit which had all the fruit liquidised and has now been bottled seems to lack real flavour which is a shame as it has a nice rose colour and looks the part!!
Is the lack of flavour due to the method of obtaining the must or too much water in the early stages or poor quality fruit?
With the pears i boiled them for 20 mins fermented in a bucket for 1 week then strained off to demijohns.
Any advice would be very useful as i hope to make more this year.

 

[robie]

Out of the internet, some of the recipes for fruit wines don't call for enough fruit, resulting is a weaker wine. I am not a fruit wine maker, but maybe those gals/guys will come along and answer your question more precisely.

In the meantime, you might want to list the recipe (portions) you used.

 

[Terry0220]

You could when they are done fermenting and after you have stablized with both k-meta and pot. sorbate you could do a f-pak. Take some fruit and simmer it down with alittle water or you could use some of the frozen concentrate like apple or grape. I have found that fruit wine needs to be backsweetened, this helps bring out the fruit flavor and by adding some fruit flavored f-pak will help as well. I have found that 6 lbs of fruit per gal. is a good way to go. Good luck!

 

[lonesomechicken]

Terry is right on with the amount of fruit per gal. Some fruits like strawberry I have gone to 10 lbs. per gal. An F-pack or concentrates will only help. And Backsweetening is to your liking. With most fruit wines I find it a must but taste as you go and dont over do it.

 

[Luc]

The best wines are made from pure juice.

look at wine in the shops. Do you really think professional winemakers would dillute their grape juice ???
Look at storebought apple-juice. Would you want that dilluted. Surely not. It would lack flavor.

So why do winemakers always add so much water to their must. Well perhaps they are following recipes in ancient books when fruit cost a load of money.

best way is so make juice from the fruit. Then measure acidity and add just enough water to bring acidity down to an acceptable level. Then add sugar to get an acceptable level of sugar to get to the desired alcohol percentage.

this way your wines will be full bodied too.

Just read the articles on my web-log there are many examples on winemaking.

Luc

 

[jswordy]

Is the lack of flavour due to the method of obtaining the must or too much water in the early stages or poor quality fruit?

Could be either or both. It is important to taste the fruit. If it doesn't burst with flavor, making wine won't improve it. Apple wine is improved by using bold and sourish apples, for example. Crab apples added to other apples boost apple wine.

Sometimes a thin wine can be improved just before bottling by adding an extract of the fruit used. Sometimes, wine with too little acid can taste thin even if it was packed with fruit. And adding sugar will sweeten the wine but also does wonders for thin fruit wines in bringing body and mouthfeel. Often the mad scientist winemaker when faced with a thin wine into which he or she has poured a lot of fruit initially will use those three, bench testing various amounts of extract, acid (usually citric at this stage but also acid blend) and sugar.

Wines that are woefully lacking flavor can be boosted by back sweetening with canned fruit juice concentrates in an appropriately complimentary flavor.

Hope this helps.

 

[BernardSmith]

Fassiman, you have not advised us how many pounds of fruit you used to the gallon or how much water you added to the fruit so from where I sit it is difficult to know what precisely the issue might be, but in my very limited experience I have found that flavor seems to improve over time, and apple wine I made 16 or more months ago now tastes far more of apples than it did 9 months ago and chocolate wine I made about a year ago has now developed chocolate tones that were definitely not there three months ago... so time and patience may be all that you need to add but if you used only a small quantity of fruit and you diluted that extensively there may be too little fruit flavor to go 'round.

 

[fassiman]

I used 5 to 6 Kg of fruit per gallon and as i dont have a press i liquidised the apples and boiled the pears for 20 mins.
I am now thinking that the fruit may be the issue as it is not the most flavoursome so i will adjust the recipe with this years crop and use additional fruit with more flavour.
Also i will be keeping a number of the bottles to "mature" them hopefully for around 18 months or so.
Do most home wine makers own a press? or is there another method to extract the juice rather than adding water to the initial must?

 

[Polarhug]

Boiling the fruit may have gassed off much of the aroma and flavor. A fruit F-Pac may be able to remedy this.