Blending questions - fruit wine

[tv190s]

Hi,

I'm new to wine making. I've only just started in the last few weeks (I have a batch of Sangiovese going currently). However I have quite a few fruit trees and this year has been very good overall for them. So naturally once I started this hobby, I started to wonder about using some of that fruit to make a batch of wine. The fruits in question are raspberries, blackberries, peaches and pears. I am interested in blending a couple of them (ie. raspberry and peach, or raspberry and pear) but I don't know how to approach it. Is it better to blend them after they've each fermented on their own, or can you simply put them both together to start? I'm sure there's a lot more I need to be aware of. But let's start here. I appreciate any insight you can give me!

Matt

 

[jgmillr1]

You can certainly throw them all in together and ferment the whole bunch, but it depends on what you are wanting to end up with. You'll have more control of the final product if you blend at the end.

Generally speaking, fruit other than grapes can have too much or too little acid that you'll need to adjust. The sugar level is usually quite low and you'll need to add bags of sugar. You may need to use pectic enzymes to break through the fleshy bits. Be sure to provide plenty of yeast nutrient. So, there is more tinkering necessary for fruit wines but they can be fantastic when done!

 

[voltron]

Hi,

I'm new to wine making. I've only just started in the last few weeks (I have a batch of Sangiovese going currently). However I have quite a few fruit trees and this year has been very good overall for them. So naturally once I started this hobby, I started to wonder about using some of that fruit to make a batch of wine. The fruits in question are raspberries, blackberries, peaches and pears. I am interested in blending a couple of them (ie. raspberry and peach, or raspberry and pear) but I don't know how to approach it. Is it better to blend them after they've each fermented on their own, or can you simply put them both together to start? I'm sure there's a lot more I need to be aware of. But let's start here. I appreciate any insight you can give me!

Matt

it works both ways, but it you want a specific fruit to dominate more then you have to make them seperate and blend later. Say for example i wanted an apple wine with hints of raspberry, i would make them seperate and later add the raspberry to taste to give it the hint of raspberry im looking for. but personally mix them all together and still end up with a nice wine and its an easier prosess, since you dont have to worry about mixing later and exposing you your batch to air while trying to find the correct rstio that suits your taste.

Since you have your own tree you can make many different batches all mixed at the begininning and see how you like just recording the ratios you use. for example say in one batch you make it 80% apple and 20% remainder all mixed in te beggining, and in another batch you have 50% apple 40 percent pear and ten percent raspeberries all mixed at the beggining, you can end up with many nice wines yet different wine just by tweaking the ratios.