Wine ideas for my wife

My friend and I are beer drinkers, I recently started brewing my own and he helps me when he can (his compensation is beer while we make it and beer when we are finished.)

Whenever we all get together and hang out, our wives always want to drink wine coolers (which we find repulsive)

We recently convinced them that drinking wine (which they both say they do not like) would be better for them (less sugar, natural things in wine that are god for you, etc...)

They like fruity wine coolers, my wife enjoyed a Moscato that she tried last summer and she even enjoyed a Sangria of some type when we visited Applebee's.

We are thinking about making some 1 gallon batches of wine to see if we can find something that they enjoy.

Any ideas? What do the "pros" have to say?

To clarify.... what flavors and or specific recipes would be good starting points?

Dry wines are a no no
Sweet is the key

Welchs White grape peach wine there is a recipe on here someplace

Blueberry wine
Apple cider
Mead

A Riesling would probably go over well. She would probably like one of the island mist or orchard breezin kits, they're like wine coolers, but they may not fit your objective of getting her to drink regular wine.

If she likes Moscato then she will like Riesling and maybe a Pinot Grigio. Start with those. Try a Zinfandel at some point.

For making your own. Brew up some Skeeter Pee, JOAM and Apfelwein. Back sweeten the Apfeiwein with some sprite or 7up.

My girl likes fruity sweet not much for the dry stuff so these work out well.

......Check this out; this should be how to make wine coolers i used whire grape peach and white grape rasberry to sweet for me but the wife likes it

Airplanedoc said:

Welchs White grape peach wine there is a recipe on here someplace

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I love my white grape peach wine. I had my wife try it the other day. She is a strict non-drinker and hates alcohol. She did not cringe.....much. She defiantly noticed both the grape and peach and said it was nice and fruity. If you get that description from her then it HAS to be good. A lot of people stick to strait Welches white grape peach juice or concentrate with just pectic enzyme, tannin powder, little acid blend and nutrients and say it is great. I wanted to add some fresh fruit so changed the recipe to the following:

1 gallon of Welch’s White grape juice
3.5 gallons of Welch’s White grape peach juice
4 cups of cane sugar
2 pounds of peaches
4 tsp of pectic enzyme
3 tsp of yeast nutrients (DAP)
2 tsp of Nutriferm Advanced (1 tsp added 24 hours after yeast pitch & the second 48 hours.)
5 crushed campden tablets
Yeast Lalvin 71B

Starting gravity should be close to 1.070. I back sweetened after stabilizing to a gravity of 1.015.

This is a 5 gallon batch but I am sure you can scale down to 1 gallon by just dividing by 5 on all ingredients.

@ jboyles: My intention was not to get her to start drinking regular wines (at least not yet). Mostly I was thinking that she could start to brew her own stuff with me and then she could custom design a wine that she would enjoy.

To everyone else, thanks for the input, my conclusion is that she could take pretty much any fruit / juice / sugar drink and make a wine out of it with some yeast and additives. Find a drink she likes and start there. The white grape / peach sounds like a good place to start.

Question: All the ingredients listed just get all mixed together right from the start?
Does not need to be heated / boiled?
Add yeast twice?
What does it mean to back sweeten? (I assume add some sugar after fermentation to fine tune the sweetness, what if it is too sweet? Is there an additive to "back un-sweeten"?

brewkinger said:

Question: All the ingredients listed just get all mixed together right from the start?
Does not need to be heated / boiled?
Add yeast twice?
What does it mean to back sweeten? (I assume add some sugar after fermentation to fine tune the sweetness, what if it is too sweet? Is there an additive to "back un-sweeten"?

Click to expand...

Add everything accept the pectic enzyme and yeast. Mix well and wait 12 hours. Then add pectic enzyme. 12-24 hours from there add yeast. Only one addition of yeast. No need to boil because the Camden tablets should sanities the must and get it ready foe the yeast to take controle.

The yeast will take that dry so you stabilize with additional camden tablets and potassium sorbate so fermentation does not start back up and add sugar to taste. If you make it too sweet then all you can do is blend in a dry wine to reduce the sweetness without hurting the body and flavor.

Here. http://skeeterpee.com/?page_id=17 Start with this. The instructions are easy to follow and it is surprisingly good.

3 gallons of old orchard apple juice
2 gallons of old orchard blue berry palmagrante juice
1 packet of wine yeast
I personally put about 5 lbs wild honey in mine.

Ferment for about a week or until gravity meets your needs then stabilize. I put this recipe in beer bottles. My wife is the same way almost but she loves this stuff.

I also make a plum wine that is pretty sweet I got tue recipe off the jack Keller website.

Jboyles123 said:

A Riesling would probably go over well. She would probably like one of the island mist or orchard breezin kits, they're like wine coolers, but they may not fit your objective of getting her to drink regular wine.

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Yes, also a White Merlot or White Zinfandel can be made with the kits. They follow the same idea of an off dry/semi sweet wine. Since these are "real wine" many of the women folk can line up for them a little easier than some homebrews. Even though we all know how tasty our personal recepies are! Good luuck convincing / winning her over!

Any berry wine is a great place to start. For me using whole fruit is the equivelant of All Grain brewing, if you're an extract guy then she could relate to more bottled juices I would think. The first wine I did was a Blueberry and I made it semi-sweet and even non-drinkers found it appealing.

A basic fruit recipe would be something along the lines of

3-4 lbs of fruit per gallon (mashed and in a bag preferably, although most of the time I never use one)
1-3 lbs of sugar depending on how high ABV you're looking for
Water to fill up to the desired level

It does take much longer than beer but for those that don't drink beer it's a nice option, plus you're always tasting along the way.

Later on you'll need some chemicals to sweeten and stabilze it, something you never do in brewing. Potassium Sorbate and Potassium Metabisulfite, and maybe some acid blend depending on how sweet you make it.

No need to heat anything, just sanitize as normal

This will make a nice fruity wine. Can easily go spritzer style by adding some seltzer or 7UP/Diet7UP, etc.
BLUEBERRY POMEGRANATE: gallon recipe

3x 64oz Blueberry Pomegranate Juice (Ocean Spray) [you will not use it all, but you can]
1 lb frozen blueberries blended into 2 cups juice (or use 2 cups blueberry juice)
1/4 tsp Tannin
2 Tbsp Fermax Yeast Nutrient [1 tbsp initially & again when O.G. dropped by 1/3, or all at start]
2 lbs sugar (suggest using 1.5# initially and check the SG before you pitch the yeast and adjust SG accordingly)
1 tsp pectic enzyme
Montrachet Yeast
Initial SG 1.095

Sanitize all equipment with k-meta, did not rinse primary--since using juice went with the assumption that the residual k-meta would provide what I needed at the beginning; combine all ingredients EXCEPT the yeast and allow to rest for at least 12 hours, then pitch the yeast starter (I used 3/4 cup BluePom, 1/4 cup water to establish starter). I used additional blueberry-pom to make sure my starting volume was 1 gallon + 2 cups (you lose a bit when transfer/rack to secondary if you opt to use the blueberries).

Ferment temp was a consistent 68F, in the room anyway. Allow plenty of headspace in primary bucket as Montrachet can get foamy. Follow your winemaking basics, stir at least twice a day until under airlock, and using k-meta at appropriate times when racking, using k-meta/sorbate if you choose to backsweeten, etc.

Racked this wine into secondary when SG had decreased by 2/3, leaving the blueberry remnants behind, and applied airlock. Racked the wine approximately 30 days after putting under airlock and again 30 days later. No additional sediment dropped at that point and wine was bone dry and crystal clear, but had sediment continued to drop I would rack every 30d until no more sediment.

Was a nice dry red & is great when backsweetened with grenadine or homemade(or all natural coffee style) blueberry syrup or simple syrup. (Example of timeline: started in mid-July, no sediment by mid-October, ready to consume by Thanksgiving). If using a yeast nutrient other than Fermax please follow dosing recommendation per manufacturer. Can add acid postferment if necessary, use citric acid or acid blend.

OK so we have decided on an apple / raspberry wine for a starter

We are going to start with a 1 gallon batch

So essentially 2-3# of apples and raspberry (in a bag for ease of cleanup?)

Enough apple juice to bring it up to around gallon of liquid, 1-2# sugar
(check with hydrometer until OG gets up 1.09 or so?
let it sit for 12 hrs, pitch yeast

airlock it and wait 30 days and just keep racking it back and forth to clear sediment

Add some chemicals (to stop fermentation)
add sugars to back sweeten and basically fine tune the taste

Bottle it and cork it?

If I have an extra 5 gallon carboy, is it OK to do this 1 gallon batch in it?

I would consider using a crushed Camden tablet when you first mix it together and then adding pectic enzyme 12-24 hours after that and yeast pitch 12-24 hours from there. These steps will help make sure you do not have infections and will help you to keep from having pectic haze in the finished product.

If you have not selected a yeast yet then Lalvin 71-b is a great yeast to use with apples. 71-b metabolizes and breaks down malic acid which will give you a more rounded out and smooth flavor in the end.

*edit* guess I did not read your whole post so here is some more.

You can bottle and cork and that is fine. I drink San Pellegrino Water which comes in 750ml screw top bottles. Perrier water come in cool round little 11.5oz screw top bottles that work well for bottling 1 gallon batches.

You can ferment in the 5 gallon container but as soon as CO2 production slows down you really need this in a 1gallon container with as little head space as possible.

Chemicals do not stop fermentation. You add sorbate and campden to a dry wine or one that has stopped due to alcohol toxicity..not common with what you will be making...when you plan to backsweeten, these two additives will prevent, not stop, fermentation. Biggest misconception in winemaking, that and if you see bubbles in airlock or carboy you are still fermenting, IMHO.
Sounds like a good first choice!! Though any fruit you add up front, you do not usually leave in indefinitely...many max out by day 3-5-7. Make sure apples are chopped, to get best extraction. You likely will not need to add a lot of sugar, apple juice usually comes in around 1.050, check S.G. right before you pitch yeast, then adjust O.G. Will also help immensely if raspberries are frozen, then thawed.
Have fun!

I can't see anyone not liking EdWort's Apfelwein that you hear about on this site. I made it and it is great. Strong too.

I bottle small batches in beer bottles with caps since I already have the supplies.

Personally I like buckets for winemaking with fruit in it, I keep my carboys for pure liquid only (brewing or secondary stuff), getting all the fruit in and out is a pain in my opinion.

Make a 5gallon batch of Skeeterpee (skeeterpee.com) but leave out the last half-bottle of lemon juice. I use Lalvin EC-1118, works every time! When it is done, backsweeten with whichever of these flavors the women-folk like: http://lowellshop.com/syrups.aspx

I use 2-3 liters of syrup depending on taste, then stabilize as usual. Strawberry is the current favorite in our house.


cheers,

robin850

brewkinger said:

OK so we have decided on an apple / raspberry wine for a starter

We are going to start with a 1 gallon batch

So essentially 2-3# of apples and raspberry (in a bag for ease of cleanup?)

Enough apple juice to bring it up to around gallon of liquid, 1-2# sugar
(check with hydrometer until OG gets up 1.09 or so?
let it sit for 12 hrs, pitch yeast

airlock it and wait 30 days and just keep racking it back and forth to clear sediment

Add some chemicals (to stop fermentation)
add sugars to back sweeten and basically fine tune the taste

Bottle it and cork it?

If I have an extra 5 gallon carboy, is it OK to do this 1 gallon batch in it?

Click to expand...

Sounds like a good starter batch. Have fun with it!