Real quick question about fruit wines

I have been making wine for a couple years now, and have always fermented my wines to complete dryness then sweetend. A couple of weeks ago I "think" I read somewhere that when making a fruit "country" wine, you are not supposed. Something about losing a lot of the fruit flavor. For the life of me I can't find that page again. Is this true? Thanks for any help.

Reply to
dparker
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Sorry, Did not follow your question. You read that you are not suppose to what? Sweeten it after making it dry? Or not suppose to make it dry to start with?

There is nothing wrong with either practice. You might visit Jack Keller's web site as he gives lots of advise on making country wines. But rephrase your question and we can answer it more directly here as well.

Making dry country wines and then sweetening them is a common practice. The sugar brings out the character of the fruit in the wine. When done correctly it is a safe way of making wine. When done incorrectly you can be making hand grenades. But that is a different issue from losing the fruit flavor.

Ray.

Reply to
Ray Calvert

ok, sorry about the confusion, I'll try again lol. I think I read somewhere that if you are making a sweet wine from fruit such as berries, you should not ferment to dryness, then sweeten. You should stop fermentation and stabalize before it is dry. Something about losing some of the fruit taste??? Can't find that page to save my life, might have been dreaming. Hope that's better, thanks Ray

Reply to
dparker

I have never read that. I do frequently ferment to dryness and then sweeten back up if desired. I frequently like the dryness, even with country wines. If you do want to stop the ferment before dryness is reached, about the only reliable way is to plunge the carboy into a freezer and take it down to a temperature that stops fermentation. Keep it there for a few days, then stabilize it with sorbate and sulfite and bring the temperature back up and see if the fermentation remains stopped.

Personally I find this a lot of trouble and just let it go to dryness, planning ahead for a particular %alcohol and then stabilize and sweeten but you can try the other way if you think it makes a difference. Maybe it will. There is always another way!

Ray

Reply to
Ray Calvert

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