Riesling with honey?

Roger -- I can't give you much feedback on the relative merits of honey and table sugar for sweetening this kind of wine; I either use the juice reserve pack (if making a kit) or table sugar. One caveat for using honey: even if it looks nice and clear, it may introduce some haziness into the wine. I've had this happen to me; I added some honey and sorbate to a dry mead just before bottling. It looked OK initially, but every bottle ended up with some sort of sediment in it, from the honey.

That's not to say it's a bad idea, just that if you do use honey as a sweetener before bottling, allow at least a couple of weeks for any non-soluble stuff in the honey to settle out, before you bottle.

Doug

Thanks Doug...

I think I'll still try honey on a small portion, maybe a gallon or so and let it settle like you suggested. Then I can compare these 5 bottles to the others.

Roger L. Pelletier, Aurora, NE USA

There is nothing wrong with using honey. You will run into many references to "Honied Wine" in old literature back to Roman times. Honey will add a slight aroma and a hint of the taste of the honey you use so pick your honey. It is not just a sweetener.

But, be aware that it could cause cloudiness that will need to be cleared (so do not bottle immediately) and your wine should be stabilized after adding it. (As you would with sugar) Either with sorbate and sulphite or some other method. Do try an experimental gallon and see how you like it.

Ray

Thanks for the response Ray. I was worried that I was trying something new or radical but with that long of a history I feel much better. Can't wait to see how they turn out!

I would have thought the type of honey would make a difference too. There are as many different honey types as wine. Bees that collect from Rape Seed for example can produce a very granulated hard honey that would introduce a haze I would guess and a different taste than other types.

Tony

You are correct, different honey will impart different tastes. Anything from a Sue Bee industrial filtered honey where there is no taste left to a raw buckwheat honey which most people would not eat on a dare.

I had a Niagara wine made from Welch's frozen concentrate that came out very dry and not particularly remarkable though it had no major flaws. I also had a Huajillo Mead (Huajillo is a fantastic tasting honey from the American SW) that came out with good flavor but somehow stopped a bit sweeter than I wanted (SGfinal = 1.009). The Niagara is probably about 12.5% alcohol while the Mead is about 11.5%. I blended 1.5 gallons of the mead with 5 gallons of the Niagara and it came out really nice. Slightly sweet with enough acid to make it interesting. Bottled it this last weekend. I started them in March and April and I am not sure how much older they are going to get.

Ray