# Wine from fruit vs juice/juice concentrate



## Shovelhead89 (Sep 12, 2016)

Is there any benefit from making wine from real, whole, fruit versus using juice or frozen juice concentrate? It seems to makes more sense to me to leave the juicing of the fruits to those who are more capable and worry about turning that fruit into wine yourself. I would assume one would say it tastes better from whole fruit but had compared a batch from whole fruit vs juice? I come from a moonshine background and did quite a bit of testing making my apple pie and peach pie shine recipes and there was either no difference in taste or the juice version was better in all my tests.


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## Scooter68 (Sep 12, 2016)

The issue is that twith some fruits you are never going to find a pure juice from that fruit. Blueberries, Blackberries, Peaches etc take a close look at those juice containers. What you are getting is of course listed in the order from the highest quantity to the lowest and more often than not unless it's Apple, Grape, Lemon, Lime or Orange juice the leading juice content is going to be something like Grape or Apple or a combination of those two. 
In other words you will be hard put to find a pure juice that is 100% of the juice on the label. 

And of course unless you are buying a juice concentrate, water will have been added to that juice - not something the majority of home wine makers want added to their juice for wine.


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## Johnd (Sep 12, 2016)

Not to mention the benefits of fermenting with the pulp and / or skins of the fruit you are making wine from. Squeeze the juice out of Cabernet grapes and make wine, you have a light fruity rose colored wine. Ferment it on the skins, much different wine, big, fruity, tannic. You get the picture.


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## Mismost (Sep 13, 2016)

I can only speak for myself, but juice is much easier and am a big fan of easy. The Hill Country of Texas isn't know for it's fruit orchards, but there are a few around. They are high priced. 

Juice is cheaper and you just dump and go. Have made plum and prickly pear wines from fresh fruits...prickly pear because I had too...plum because it's what I was given. For simple ease of use I prefer to use juice or concentrates. But, I have another batch of plums in the freezer and I am going to keep working with fresh fruits and may someday even try wine making with real grapes...when I retire and have more time to babysit!


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## wineforfun (Sep 13, 2016)

I agree with Johnd, there are a lot of benefits of using fresh fruit to get the juice from. I always use juice straight from the fruit, whenever possible.

With that said, I understand it is not always economical or practical for everyone to do.


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## Scooter68 (Sep 13, 2016)

wineforfun said:


> I agree with Johnd, there are a lot of benefits of using fresh fruit to get the juice from. I always use juice straight from the fruit, whenever possible.
> 
> With that said, I understand it is not always economical or practical for everyone to do.



Exactly - You just need to know what the trade-offs are and as long as you are fine with that then go for it. If you think you are getting a pure juice but later realize that it's a blend, then you may be disappointed. Otherwise ferment, age and enjoy.


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## rfalls (Sep 14, 2016)

There's no substitute for fresh fruit....but I do cheat. I use some concentrates to which I add fresh fruit!


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## gotbags-10 (Sep 19, 2016)

I just picked up 3 gal of juice concentrate from glcc flavor. One each of blueberry,raspberry, blackberry. They produce concentrates on a large level for commercial wineries. Their is no water added, it's a 1+3 parts water concentrate. Their president told me it's as good if not better than using real fruit and clears dramaticly faster. Can't wait to try


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## Turock (Sep 29, 2016)

As one who makes LOTS of fruit wine, there's nothing better than the fruit itself.


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## Scooter68 (Sep 29, 2016)

As Strawberry Koolaid takes sorta kinda like Strawberries - Prepared fruit juices taste like the real fruit - but there are subtle tastes and qualities you lose when they do mass production of fruit juices. And don't forget the additives and things they use to sanitize, purify, pasturize etc that fruit juice. Not to mention that finding PURE juice of anything but Grapes, and Apples is tough and when you do find them they are very expensive if they are truly pure. My two cents worth.... again.

As to the claim that it clears faster - that means they have removed a very high amount of the juice pulp - something that does contribute to the flavor of things. If you get a fresh peach check out the taste you get right there at the skin compared to the rest of the peach - that's sort of what I'm talking about. Sometimes you need those 'impurities' and particles to get the full flavors of the fruits. I'd rather deal with the lees from a puree or less filtered juice than potentially loose flavor. Remember you are going to have lees from the yeast anyway, so what if there is some from the fruit pulp.


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