Fruit wine help

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Thehuntmaster

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Hi guys,
My sister has a school project to brew marula wine.
A marula is a small African fruit, I am struggling to think of a well known fruit that is similar in flavour. At a push i would say a plum or a peach. Info can be found @ http://www.marula.org.za/abfruit.htm.
Since I do a fair amount of beer home brewing, my sister has asked me to help her, unfortunately I know nothing about wine or wine making.
There is only one home brew shop in South Africa (to my knowledge) and they have the following yeasts and additives:
Yeasts: STEINBERG, BORDEAUX, CHAMPAGNE & CHABLIS (12%),HAUTE SAUTERNE (14%) ALL PURPOSE,SHERRY, PORT,BURGUNDY, MADEIRA, TOKAJ (18-19%)
Additives: WINE YEAST NUTRIENT
PEKTOLASE
CITRIC ACID
GRAPE TANNIN
MALIC ACID
TARTARIC ACID
BENTONITE
STABILISER (STOPS FERMENTATION)
ALL PURPOSE FININGS FOR STUBBORN HAZES
CAMPDEN TABLETS

What sort of recipe should I be looking at (with the available ingredients), what alcohol ranges, and time till completion?
I am told that the wine needs to be ready for a wine tasting on the 23rd of Feb. From my experience with beer I think this date is very unrealistic.

Hopefully someone can help :rockin:
 
Well, I know nothing of the marula fruit, but I do know a website that has all sorts of wine recipes: http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/request.asp scroll down for a list of requested recipes. You could always request a recipe from Jack Keller (it's his website), maybe he actually has one for marula fruit. If all else fails, pick a recipe that uses a similar fruit & just use marula.

I just had a look at the link you posted & did a quick search, I think your main problem is going to be the acid levels in the fruit "4x the vitamin C as an orange." That type of acidity is tough on yeast. That being said, I heard about a winery in South Africa that was actually producing wine from a fruit that looked very similar to marula. Seems it was one of the 1st, if not the 1st black owned winery in South Africa. There is also a cream liquer made from marula, but I have no idea if that's the product I heard about. Good luck to you. Regards, GF.
 
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