Chuchulainn

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I've heard wine from raisins called by varying names, though I think passito is protected designation so I'll just call it passito-style. I started fermenting some a few days ago, put it in "secondary" yesterday, VERY dry (I don't think passito-styles are supposed to be that dry?), strong. I simply crushed raisins (no time to let them steep- busy busy!) and added sugar before pitching yeast (Lalvin wine yeast). It's pretty good, but I think aging will definitely improve the flavour and bouquet, which are a little harsh right now. Can't quantify SG and ABV because I'm too cheap to go out and buy a hydrometer- hey, the ancients got by for millennia without such "sorcery".

I have a question for you as well. Has anyone ever tried making this stuff? If you haven't tried it, I'd say mine tastes pretty much like regular wine with a slight hint of raisiny-ness.

P.S. why does everyone post "apfelwein" (I just call it cider) in this thread? Isn't there a cider forum for that?

Chuchulainn

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P.P.S. I can't say what kind of grapes the raisins were from... they were simply the type that you can buy in bulk at your local supermarket. They looked like they came from green grapes though.

gregbathurst

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In Australia raisins are produced from muscat grapes, which are also used to produce sweet dessert wines (used fresh not dried.) sultanas are smaller and also used fresh for wine, mainly bulk white wine of low quality. Sweet dessert wines are sometimes produced by cutting the fruiting stems to allow the fruit to dry out and concentrate the sugars, or using botrytis infected grapes which dry out to concentrate the sugars. (Noble rot)

Muscat dessert wines are produced by picking the grapes ultra-ripe with very high sugar, fermenting briefly and adding spirit to stop fermentation with most of the sugar still unfermented. they are fortified to app. 20%abv then aged for years in oak to get oxidised flavours and a deep yellow brown colour, producing a very complex, syrupy wine.
This is all just FYI, I have never done this sort of thing but thought you might find a bit of background interesting.

etp777

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In the US raisins are generally made from thompson seedless grapes.

And Apfelwein, while made from apples, is a german drink that tends to be higher alcohol than cider, and made with more traditional wine yeasts, at least from my understanding, and that's why it's talked about in here. THough they talk about it in cider section too.

gregbathurst

Recipes 

Thompson seedless is also known as sultana.
I wasn't sure about names used, we call dried muscat "gordo blanco' raisins because they are bigger, and the smaller dried ones sultana.

Chuchulainn

Recipes 

Update: backsweetened, but apparently the yeasts weren't dead yet even though I used sulphites. It continued fermenting and now I think it's a sparkling wine. A little sweeter than before, now that it's apparently stopped fermenting. I didn't mean for it to be like that, but it's an added bonus.