# Sparkling wine...it bubbles but lacks in flavor



## offthehipevents (Nov 27, 2022)

I recently opened my first batch of sparkling wine that I made from a gallon of mulled apple cider. It has beautiful tiny bubbles, but not much flavor. I've made the mulled apple cider plain before and it always comes out great. I corked a batch early and champagne caged it to see if I could get a sparkling version. It is not what I expected at all. I was hoping it would keep some of the sweetness or at the least have the cinnamon notes but it's very flat. There is no mouthfeel or pucker. It does taste like theres a lot more alcohol content than the 13% PA I started out with. Any advise would be helpful.


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## BernardSmith (Nov 28, 2022)

If you know the starting gravity of the juice (when you say apple cider, you mean non alcoholic apple juice rather than as the term is understood internationally as an alcoholic drink of around 6 -7% ABV?) , the volume of liquid and the amount of any fermentable sugar you added, and the finishing gravity we can give you an idea of the actual ABV. The thing is that most country wines need some sweetness to bring forward the flavors of the fruit. I have no idea why that seems to be the case while wines made from grapes rarely need any substantive back sweetening (in my opinion) because no matter how dry the wine might be there always tends to be a perception of sweetness.


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## BigDaveK (Nov 28, 2022)

Congrats on making a sparkling wine. Haven't ventured there yet, on the list.

Many wines don't taste as robust as the unadulterated main flavor ingredient. Fermentation does that. So not tasting like mulled cider doesn't surprise me.

Many sparkling wines have an unfermentable sugar added on the assumption that the yeast will use up much/most/all of the regular sugar. As far as "pucker", did you add acid and tannin? Apples can be acidic but most still need an acid added. Even my super tart Granny Smith's needed a bit.

Good luck!


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## offthehipevents (Dec 1, 2022)

BernardSmith said:


> If you know the starting gravity of the juice (when you say apple cider, you mean non alcoholic apple juice rather than as the term is understood internationally as an alcoholic drink of around 6 -7% ABV?) , the volume of liquid and the amount of any fermentable sugar you added, and the finishing gravity we can give you an idea of the actual ABV. The thing is that most country wines need some sweetness to bring forward the flavors of the fruit. I have no idea why that seems to be the case while wines made from grapes rarely need any substantive back sweetening (in my opinion) because no matter how dry the wine might be there always tends to be a perception of sweetness.


Yes I do mean apple juice. I measured the specific gravity at 1.1 to get about 13 % ABV. But I only measured after sweetening. And before bottling. The math is intimidating. I try my best and so far I've done well. But you all make this sound like rocket science. I think my mistake came later I let it ferment almost all the way out then sweetened again and added a bit more yeast nutrient before bottling. If I had to correct the taste I would say it needs to be sweetened but I'm not even sure that's possible.


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## offthehipevents (Dec 1, 2022)

BigDaveK said:


> Congrats on making a sparkling wine. Haven't ventured there yet, on the list.
> 
> Many wines don't taste as robust as the unadulterated main flavor ingredient. Fermentation does that. So not tasting like mulled cider doesn't surprise me.
> 
> ...


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## BernardSmith (Dec 8, 2022)

offthehipevents said:


> Yes I do mean apple juice. I measured the specific gravity at 1.1 to get about 13 % ABV. But I only measured after sweetening. And before bottling. The math is intimidating. I try my best and so far I've done well. But you all make this sound like rocket science. I think my mistake came later I let it ferment almost all the way out then sweetened again and added a bit more yeast nutrient before bottling. If I had to correct the taste I would say it needs to be sweetened but I'm not even sure that's possible.


If you would like to share the recipe and the quantities of ingredients you used we can estimate the true ABV A gravity of 1.1000 means that your apple wine has more than 2lbs of unfermented sugar in every gallon. That is very sweet. I am not sure that our bodies can detect more sweetness than this. If there is 16 cups (approximately) in a gallon and you have 2 lbs (plus) of sugar then you have 32 oz of sugar in 16 cups and so 2 oz of sugar in each cup. If the wine was coffee and you added 2 teaspoons of sugar you would be adding about 12.5 teaspoons of sugar to every cup... Not certain, but I think we cannot taste more than 6 teaspoonfuls of sugar in a cup... So... Are you certain that you are reading your hydrometer correctly?


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## offthehipevents (Dec 10, 2022)

BernardSmith said:


> If you would like to share the recipe and the quantities of ingredients you used we can estimate the true ABV A gravity of 1.1000 means that your apple wine has more than 2lbs of unfermented sugar in every gallon. That is very sweet. I am not sure that our bodies can detect more sweetness than this. If there is 16 cups (approximately) in a gallon and you have 2 lbs (plus) of sugar then you have 32 oz of sugar in 16 cups and so 2 oz of sugar in each cup. If the wine was coffee and you added 2 teaspoons of sugar you would be adding about 12.5 teaspoons of sugar to every cup... Not certain, but I think we cannot taste more than 6 teaspoonfuls of sugar in a cup... So... Are you certain that you are reading your hydrometer correctly?


I might not have. I've always struggled with reading the specific gravity side. I have tried different hydrometers thinking the scale would be written differently on them. I tend to use the percent of potential alcohol side more because on my hydrometer that is the easiest side to read. Each line is a percent=easy. I also dont really understand the point of knowing the specific gravity when I can just read the percent. We dont lable our wines with the specific gravity...we lable with the percent of alcohol content. The scale will still tell me when its fermented out it will read 0%. And I can adjust my sugar to match the percent of alcohol content I need to end up with the same way.


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## BernardSmith (Dec 10, 2022)

Not sure I follow, but that may be my ignorance. The percentage is a one use metric. Before you pitch (add) your yeast , your measurement using that scale tells you (by converting the specific gravity into ABV) the potential ABV of your must. Pitch the yeast and five minutes later (It could be two days , depending on the lag time) any "potential" reading is no longer valid because already some of the sugars - what makes the liquid dense AKA specific gravity - has been converted to alcohol so, if on day 1 the reading was 12% POTENTIAL , by day 4 the POTENTIAL may be 9% ... and so 3 % of the potential alcohol has been actualized - and is no longer "potential" .It's already in your fermenter. After your wine has finished fermenting it may have hit the potential - or it may have stalled, then if you KNOW it has fully finished (stalled or consumed all the sugar) if you add sugar you will raise the density because sugar PLUS liquid increases the density of the liquid, increases the specific gravity of the liquid. If now, your specific gravity is 1.100 that tells us that there is more than 2 lbs of unfermented sugar in solution. Some of that sugar may have been in the wine - if you don't know the gravity of the wine when you added sugar , and some of that sugar is what you added. '
If you know the total volume of your wine and you know the amount of sugar you added, we can tell you the gravity at which your wine stopped fermenting ans so the actual ABV of your wine.


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## offthehipevents (Dec 10, 2022)

BernardSmith said:


> Not sure I follow, but that may be my ignorance. The percentage is a one use metric. Before you pitch (add) your yeast , your measurement using that scale tells you (by converting the specific gravity into ABV) the potential ABV of your must. Pitch the yeast and five minutes later (It could be two days , depending on the lag time) any "potential" reading is no longer valid because already some of the sugars - what makes the liquid dense AKA specific gravity - has been converted to alcohol so, if on day 1 the reading was 12% POTENTIAL , by day 4 the POTENTIAL may be 9% ... and so 3 % of the potential alcohol has been actualized - and is no longer "potential" .It's already in your fermenter. After your wine has finished fermenting it may have hit the potential - or it may have stalled, then if you KNOW it has fully finished (stalled or consumed all the sugar) if you add sugar you will raise the density because sugar PLUS liquid increases the density of the liquid, increases the specific gravity of the liquid. If now, your specific gravity is 1.100 that tells us that there is more than 2 lbs of unfermented sugar in solution. Some of that sugar may have been in the wine - if you don't know the gravity of the wine when you added sugar , and some of that sugar is what you added. '
> If you know the total volume of your wine and you know the amount of sugar you added, we can tell you the gravity at which your wine stopped fermenting ans so the actual ABV of your wine.


See the book I am used to using never explained it that way to me so this is very insightful. It's an older book and in the hydrometer chapter the author gave an example of how to read the SG but not what it meant in depth. Then said not to worry too much about that scale for now and began talking about potential alcohol percent. I love the recipies in there and it's my go to source. But I really need to learn SG better if I'm going to improve.


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## BernardSmith (Dec 10, 2022)

I think SG is very simple: water is given a nominal density (another term for specific gravity ) of 1.000. Sugar, when added to water, or as in juice is in water, increases the density - if you dissolve 1 lb of sugar in water to make a TOTAL volume of 1 US gallon (not an imperial gallon which is larger) the density will rise to 1.045. A density of 1.045 has a potential alcohol by volume of almost 6% . A density of 1.090 at the same volume of liquid (you added 2 lbs of sugar but kept the total volume 1 US gallon will have a potential ABV of 12% . 
Alcohol has less density than water, and when you ferment the sugars in juice, the density drops towards the density of water and can - and should - fall below 1.000 (because alcohol is less dense than water and so if the 1 gallon is still one gallon and there is now alcohol PLUS water in the liquid (and no sugar) then we can expect the density to drop below 1.000 to , perhaps 0.998 or 0.996 or even 0.994 (You still have other compounds in this liquid so it is not PURE water and alcohol and it is not PURE alcohol (200 proof) which is not possible even with distillation. 
When you add yeast you can follow the rate at which the yeast is producing (actually) alcohol by monitoring the scale that shows the specific gravity.


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## winemaker81 (Dec 10, 2022)

@BernardSmith, your explanation is spot on. You might repost on the thread explaining how to use a hydrometer, as this is probably a confusing point for many people, and your explanation should be preserved.


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## BernardSmith (Dec 10, 2022)

winemaker81 said:


> @BernardSmith, your explanation is spot on. You might repost on the thread explaining how to use a hydrometer, as this is probably a confusing point for many people, and your explanation should be preserved.


Thanks, but I sorta kinda wrote this for offthehipevents. If someone wants to post this elsewhere, feel free, but I think it might need some more clarification when it is posted without any context.


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## Raptor99 (Dec 10, 2022)

@offthehipevents I took look at my hydrometer. 0% ABV corresponds to a SG reading of 1.000. So the ABV scale is an interpretation of the SG scale before fermentation begins. After fermentation has started, a pontential ABV of 0% (= SG 1.000) does *not* mean that fermentation is complete. The presence of alcohol lowers the SG reading, so fermentation is not complete until SG is lower, e.g. around 0.996 or 0.994. This would be a negative ABV number on the hydrometer scale.


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## BernardSmith (Dec 10, 2022)

Raptor99 said:


> @offthehipevents I took look at my hydrometer. 0% ABV corresponds to a SG reading of 1.000. So the ABV scale is an interpretation of the SG scale before fermentation begins. After fermentation has started, a pontential ABV of 0% (= SG 1.000) does *not* mean that fermentation is complete. The presence of alcohol lowers the SG reading, so fermentation is not complete until SG is lower, e.g. around 0.996 or 0.994. This would be a negative ABV number on the hydrometer scale.


It COULD be complete. There are many reasons why yeast may quit fermenting before the hydrometer shows that the gravity to be below 1.000 but if the wine is stable at 1.000 for say, three readings over , say 2 weeks you can be pretty confident that fermentation has ceased - but to be clear, if you are measuring the gravity in your primary vessel, you want to be racking (transferring) the wine into the secondary vessel (and off the lees and dead yeast while the wine is still actively fermenting - somewhere between 1.010 and 1.005 and this to use the CO2 the yeast is still belching out to protect the wine from oxygen (oxidation)


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## offthehipevents (Dec 11, 2022)

BernardSmith said:


> It COULD be complete. There are many reasons why yeast may quit fermenting before the hydrometer shows that the gravity to be below 1.000 but if the wine is stable at 1.000 for say, three readings over , say 2 weeks you can be pretty confident that fermentation has ceased - but to be clear, if you are measuring the gravity in your primary vessel, you want to be racking (transferring) the wine into the secondary vessel (and off the lees and dead yeast while the wine is still actively fermenting - somewhere between 1.010 and 1.005 and this to use the CO2 the yeast is still belching out to protect the wine from oxygen (oxidation)


Yes I rack from primary to carboy after a week and then again at least 2 times during secondary fermentation. But I've rarely checked the SG during racking times. I'm hesitant to do so because of wine loss. The instructions I've always read say to not pour wine back after measuring. Both the hydometers I have take a good amount of wine to give a measurement. Do any of you pour yours back in? How will diluting with water affect the end product?


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## cmullin (Dec 11, 2022)

This is not advice but even grape wine that is carbonated can taste less sweet that uncarbonated. My wife and I don't really like champagne much , but it is occasionally gifted. I let carbonated wine go flat, mostly for champagne vinegar(very nice in a salad). A wine that tastes nice and dry and acidic carbonated will taste really sweet when flat. Home made vinegar is awesome, and a good way to use leftover wine. Its a good deal also, good wine vinegar can be$25 a bottle and the bottles are only 250 ml's .


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## sour_grapes (Dec 11, 2022)

offthehipevents said:


> Yes I rack from primary to carboy after a week and then again at least 2 times during secondary fermentation. But I've rarely checked the SG during racking times. I'm hesitant to do so because of wine loss. The instructions I've always read say to not pour wine back after measuring. Both the hydometers I have take a good amount of wine to give a measurement. Do any of you pour yours back in? How will diluting with water affect the end product?



Yes, I routinely pour the wine from my (previously sanitized) test cylinder back into the must/wine.


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## Ohio Bob (Dec 11, 2022)

I do as well. As long as your hydrometer and tube are sanitized, there should not be a problem.

If I’m checking my fermentation bucket I just put the hydrometer straight in the bucket. Don’t even mess around with the sampling tube.


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## winemaker81 (Dec 11, 2022)

offthehipevents said:


> The instructions I've always read say to not pour wine back after measuring.


When you have a 10,000 gallon take, tossing away a hydrometer jar of wine is trivial.

I don't have a 10,000 gallon tank. Take away 3 zeros and you'll get my size.  

Like Paul & Bob, I pour the wine back in.


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## BernardSmith (Dec 11, 2022)

offthehipevents said:


> Yes I rack from primary to carboy after a week and then again at least 2 times during secondary fermentation. But I've rarely checked the SG during racking times. I'm hesitant to do so because of wine loss. The instructions I've always read say to not pour wine back after measuring. Both the hydometers I have take a good amount of wine to give a measurement. Do any of you pour yours back in? How will diluting with water affect the end product?


If you are sanitizing your hydrometer and test cylinders then pour your wine back. Wine ain't beer and beer is what is likely to sour when exposed to bacteria in the air, so sanitization is not necessarily sufficient to prevent "spoilage" (fear quotes for spoilage because some brewers actively SEEK the souring bacteria (some of the same bacteria you might use if you bake sourdough bread).

As to topping up with water, I would suggest that you don't unless you have accounted for added water when you created the recipe. Water dilutes. It will lower the ABV (the more water with the same amount of sugar results in a lower ABV - remember my example about 1 lb of sugar added to water to make 1 gallon total - any additional water lowers the maximum potential ABV. Water also dilutes the strength of the flavors from the juice (or honey) . The better idea is to use a food grade bucket as your primary and make MORE than the amount of must that you will be racking to the secondary. You don't begin with what you plan to bottle . You begin with perhaps 10-12 % more (another pint) so that when you rack and hold back the lees (sediment) you still have enough wine to fill the secondary.


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