Terrible year for my fruit wines....

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casebrew

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Last fall's Prickly Pair wine is stil to strog/harsh. Great for cooking and home made salsa though. but 50 bottles? That's going to take a lot of salsa!

The spring Low Quats were few and sour. The wine was reminiscent of lemonade.

The peach wine in the summer was good, but the plum wine was pretty tasteless.

A batch of white peach wine that I coached my nephew through- well, what it lacks in taste it makes up for in ABV.

The road side stand had seedless grapes for 39¢. Tasteless wine too.

I tried a fig wine. I've never tried to drink battery acid, but it can't be any harsher finish than the fig flavored paint remover. Good flavor, but undrinkable.

I bought two boxes of plums two months ago that haven't sweetened in my living room yet. Tasteless too, I may not even bother fermenting them. Might make prunes?
The fruit flies are all over them though. Swarming in the living room.

I've been buying 99¢ two liter soda and making wine coolers to get my evening glass and drink that stuff up.

Or maybe buy some kind of fruit flavoring? Like Kiwi? Or add Jalapenos?

I sure hope the LowQuats do better this spring. Meantime I think I'll brew some of my Malted Oat and sugar beer, not great but it is gluten free and better than sorghum.

On a non-related site, somebody said distilling for your own use is federally legal. Hmmm...
 
Just a word of caution, steer away from talks about distillation, it's against the rules here and they have no tolerance for it.
 
The prickly pear & fig wines might age well, tuck them away & try 1 of each in a year, if they're still harsh, tuck 'em away for another year.

If you have 2 month old plums that have fruit flies on them, I'd say add those plums to the compost heap; or make vinegar. Fruit flies often carry acetobacter & have very likey infected that fruit; you might still make a vinegar from it, so it wouldn't be a total loss.

I never had a low quat, but alcoholic lemonade doesn't sound bad, like a real lemonade with a shot of vodka in it. There's always next year, that's what I told myself when I had to dump 10 gallons of cyser down the drain due to some nasty oxidation.
Regards, GF.
 
I have three words for you: blend, age, & bubbles. I have made some really good wines and I have made some that were not so good. I remember a Rhubarb I made once that was horrible, but I was able to salvage it by blending it with other wines. In this case it was to acidic and the alcohol was to forward in the taste profile. when I blended it with another wine it got tons better in fact the blended wine was way better than either of the wines had been on their own.

Aging wine is always the best way to improve its flavor, doesn't always work but with time most fruity notes will come back and make the wine more palatable.

If your wines are dry and you did not use stabilizer, than carbonation is an option. It amazes me how something as simple a carbonation can really improve the flavor. Pop is a perfect example of that, For the most part, it is universally agreed that flat pop is disgusting, but add bubbles and it is the drink of choice the world over. Amazingly adding carbonation to a "bad" wine can really make it quite good. Just make sure you use the correct bottles and don't over prime.
 
I guess I'll toss the plums into the compost. No flavor anyhow. Hmm, unless I squeeze and boil down to a stronger flavor syrup? Boiling the wort kills the acetobactor in beer mash, ought to work for wine. Like making wine from pasteurized concentrated fruit syrups. Wait, pasturzeing is a good idea, but just won't add water. Most fruit wines get diluted, I won't with that experiment? (It's what I like about fruit vs grapes. 10# grapes makes 6# wine. 10# plums makes 18# wine. Plus fruit is cheep/free.)

I have tried blends. It doesn't take much of the fig wine to bring on a harsh finish. I guess I'll toss that. Too bad, it was the batch with the most flavor. At least it was only a 2 gallon batch.

I haven't tried carbonation. Most batches have been stabilized, but I do have a mini-keg and O2 system.

The neighbors's Low Quat tress have lots of green berries. This years crop may make up for last year's poor volume. The question of quality won't be answered until ripe. I think some kind of chill wind did in last year's fruit. The sheltered trees did better, the one unsheltered had no fruit at all. We are having low highs, but no frost- yet. We'll see...
 
Update: I tossed the batch of plums that had the active fruit fly infestation. But as it hit the bin, I noticed a vinegary smell. I guess the poster who mentioned acetobacter coming in on the flies was correct. Then I remembered the flies in the figs. So I retasted the fig wine, in comparison to bottled vinegar. Yup, that acid finish is vinegar. And in the meantime, the tasteless plum wine got sour too. So I dumped the fig vinegar into the plum, and have 3 gallons of plum figgy vinegar. Still sweet and fruity, but plenty sour too. It won't siphon, the 'mother' is glumps of goo. It doesn't sink to the bottom like yeast does. So How to filter it? I figure to bottle it in 12oz clear bottles and give away as much as I can. I have to create some kind of sourpuss label... Pickled eggs? Pickled peppers?

Looks like it only cost me three gallons of wine to learn to pay better attention to my sanitation practices.

The even better news is the oldest batch of prickly pair wine is drinkable. It may even last me until the new Lowquats come in. Which look good and early this year- I ate one yesterday that was sweet enough to do, might pick enough for a gallon or two in a week. Hoping for 300 pounds this year, 50 gallons or so.
 
glad to here things are looking up. It is kind of funny it tastes bad when you are expecting wine and get vinegar but when you are expecting vinegar it is not so bad and has tons of good uses :)
 
Yup. The vinegar is awesome. I let it settle until now, RDWHAHB. It cleared up nicely. Seems to have less acid than store bought distilled stuff, but my reading says that is SOP for fruit/wine vinegars.

I 'pickled' some eggs by using it full strength instead of diluting with water. It got cloudy, which I was also expecting from reading up on vinegars. Sweet and fruity tasting. Yummy.

And right now a 1/2 rack of pork ribs is on the BBQ spit. I use Alton Brown's brining recipe. Again, no water to dilute the weaker vinegar. Plum Wine Vinegar, salt, a little added sugar, spices (onion powder, garlic powder, whole cumin, ground black pepper, some Chipotle powder). Soak in a zip lock on the counter for 1 1/2 hour, brown on high heat, turn down for another 1 1/2 - 2 hours. I use the rotisserie with the rib rack wired to a flat rack. Roast at about 275 or so. let you know how they come out. I'd offer to share, but I usually only have dog bits left. Yummy . Buuuurrrp.

Addendum, so far as this year's wines go: Off to a good start, the Loquats are early ripening fast. I picked 10# on Monday, and another 40 pounds today. I swear, they ripen as I circle the trees ! I pick all the ripe ones on one side, circle around, and when I get back where I started, there are more ripe ones. And it's fast wine too. Ferments and settles in no time, I'll be drinking it in a month or so.
 
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