Richer Muscadine Wine?

[jonereb]

My red muscadine wine is okay, but I'd like it richer, fuller. I'm using Noble and Black Jumbo varieties. I add no water to the process, and go thru typical fermentation using Cotes des Blanc yeast achieving 11% to 13% ABV from year to year. I also bulk age for one year, bottle the wine and age another year -- so two years aging total. I don't pay attention to pH, but I do check acid content, which is usually 6.5. When racking, I back-fill with pure cherry juice -- I like how it smooths the flavor. What can I do to get a richer, fuller wine? Right now, it looks and feels a little watered down, but it isn't.

 

[MilesBFree]

I hate muscadines as eating grapes, but a friend made muscadine wine and I loved it. I need to try this next.

I am not an expert, but one thing I usually do for things like dandelion wine that would have little fullness otherwise is to add raisins along with the fruit/herbage.

I use 8 oz of raisins per gallon of wine. I boil them for about 10 mintues to kill any wild yeast, remove the sugar they are coated with, and soften them. Then I strain them, let them cool a bit, chop them up, put them in a cheesecloth bag, and giveit a couple of good squeezes when I add to the must when I start the wine in the primary fermenter. I remove them along with the fruit after a week or so.

I use regular raisins for darker wines and golden raisins for white-ish wines like the dandelion wine I mentioned.

 

[Abhishek Dewan]

My red muscadine wine is okay, but I'd like it richer, fuller. I'm using Noble and Black Jumbo varieties. I add no water to the process, and go thru typical fermentation using Cotes des Blanc yeast achieving 11% to 13% ABV from year to year. I also bulk age for one year, bottle the wine and age another year -- so two years aging total. I don't pay attention to pH, but I do check acid content, which is usually 6.5. When racking, I back-fill with pure cherry juice -- I like how it smooths the flavor. What can I do to get a richer, fuller wine? Right now, it looks and feels a little watered down, but it isn't.

Not specifically for Muscadine but adding wheat berries to must provides body. I typically use 100gm per 5 liters. Also, adding glycerol 50 ml per 20 liters will provide body, smoothness and mouthfeel, add on bottling day. Yeasts naturally produce this but adding extra brings good results.

 

[toadie]

I'm confused. You don't check pH but do check T/A? I would buy a modestly priced but decent meter to start with and go from there. Cheers.