Why no commercial fruit wine?

Wine stores and grocery stores are both driven by what consumers want and purchase most. Our local Harris Teeter grocery store can easily get Tomasello Fruit wines, but I have to order a case and wait 3 weeks to get them. They stock sometimes around the holidays, but usually only a case and it's sold slowly, since many folks won't try unusual wines. The above web site - if you contact them via email, will tell you where local retailers can get their fruit wines.

Kinda sad, too. Cause Cranberry wine makes an incredible Cosmopolitan, Blueberry wine is luscious, and plum wine, well, it's different. smile. So I make my own. The peach-mango is almost ready to bottle. :*)

DAve

p.s. I asked a w> I've never seen a grocery store or wine store offer any kind of fruit

No, you can produce and market fruit wines. One problem is that is it hard to commercially make fruit wines and still have a high enough profit margin to sell them at prices that consumers are willing to pay. This is the only exclusive fruit wine winery that I have ever seen.

Igor,

I suppose it depends on where you live, and how hard you look. I live in Northern VA, and there are a number of local wineries who also make fruit wines, and fruit/grape blend wines. (And yes, I'm aware that grapes are a fruit;))

One such which I have enjoyed are the various "Chateau le Cabin" offerings from Horton Vineyards. You may peruse their selection here:

I have also sampled non-grape wines in a few other states while on vacation. Vermont in particular (Burlington area) seemed to have a large offering of blueberry, cranberry, and maple syrup wines.

Cheers, Ken Taborek

A couple of years ago some winery was advertising a peach blush wine on TV. Dunno why it didn't seem to catch on. But I'm sure some liquor stores still sell it.

In many places, the law forbids the addition of water, which makes many fruit wines taste far too syrupy to be commercially successful (at least the ones I've bought in Canada have been). I've bought some good berry wines in Germany (although one must be lucky to find a store that carries them), but not here.

There are some wines that are mixtures of grape and fruit (blackberry merlot, peach chardonnay, etc.)- the ones I've tried taste like a mix of cheap wine and Kool-Aid, so I'm surprised they are as successful as they are.

Do you mean the "arbor mist" stuff?

That stuff is to wine what Coca Cola is to lemonade...once, a long time ago there was actual lemon juice (or in this case wine) in it.

Casa de Fruta, a traveler's country store /tourist trap on Highway 152 at Hollister (east of Gilroy) California, has a long history of selling decent fruit wines (I remember apricot, blackberry and pomegranate).

If you are so inclined, their website is

Gene

snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com wrote:

No federal law that I'm aware of.

Nashoba Valley Winery in MA also makes some fruit wines. I've never tried them but hear they are pretty good.

Andy

Friar Tuck's chain in my area (Central Illinois) carries locally produced fruit wines.

Most of the stores in Minnesota that sell any significant amount of wine also sell fruit wines, as well as local grape wines (yes, descent wine grapes can be tortured in MN). I see many fruit wines, melomels and even meads available; most brewed in Wisconsin or Minnesota.

I don't really go looking for fruit wines at the liquor stores here (Colorado), but have seen plenty of fruit wines for sale at the wine festivals around the state.

Also, they have Japanese plum wines at every store here.

And don't forget Boones Farm. Or did they finally stop making this fine elixer?

St.James winery in Mo. has an excellent blackberry that I see in all the grocery and liquor stores in the stl area.

I've never seen a grocery store or wine store offer any kind of fruit wine such as cranberry wine, blueberry wine, plum wine, etc. Why is that? Is there some law against it? Maybe there's a federal law that prohibits adding sugar to a wine for the purpose of increasing alcohol content, and therefore every fruit except for grapes would be unsuitable for wine. What gives? Thanks.

Blueberry and peach wines are available in stores in Canada. Apple too. I've had peach wine that I bought at Winn-Dixie in Fla. You should web search and find some, they are out there.

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You can find fruit wines but good ones are not generally available. There are several things working against them.

First people connect fruit wines with low quality country wines and are not willing to pay much for them. Less money means less incentive to make and sell them.

Second, people expect fruit wines to taste like the fruit they were made from. When fruit wines are made dry they taste like wine. Does dry grape wine taste like fresh grapes? No. The way to make a wine have some of the original fruit character is to make is sweet. This cuts down on the market again as there is just not that large of a market for sweet wine.

For the foreseeable future, if you want good fruit wine, you need to make it yourself. But then that does not bother me greatly. ;o)

Ray

Hello, There's are some winery's in Wisconsin who make a variety of fruit wines - Three Lakes Winery in Three Lakes Wisconsin, one in Door County, and another in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. You can order on-line from the Three Lakes Winery. I have tried a couple of their wines and they are very good, but since I make my own and it is much cheaper I don't buy them much. Darlene