Back-sweeten with Grape concentrate.

[troutgod]

I have been thinking of ways to sweeten wine other than just sugar. Has anyone used frozen grape juice concentrate? Also, do you think it would be possible to further concentrate the juice concentrate to avoid the increase in volume or diluting factor? Basically, can I boil the juice concentrate?
I ask as I made wine from a white hybrid (riesling/qewurtz, etc) I picked last year and it is relatively flavorless. So, rather than toss it I will sweeten it a bit but don't want sweet flavorless wine. That is where the juice concentrate comes in. Thoughts? Thanks.

 

[Donatelo]

I would think that a can of frozen grape concentrate would be okay. Do you have a white grape concentrate juice. I don't know if trying to concentrate it further to save space would be a good idea. I've never tried that. I always take out enough to do the addition. Drink a little young wine!
I do know that you must stabilize the wine before adding a flavor pack by adding a finning agent such as sorbate and K-meta.
Supply stores have fruit flavor additives that don't add much sweetness, but do add body. I added 4oz of Peach flavor to my 6-gallon Gewurztraminer and it turned out nice, but that is ones own personal feeling. Good luck.

 

[Scooter68]

Only issue I could possibly think of would be unseen 'fines' that cloud the wine once you add that concentrate. Less likely with a white grape like Donatelo suggested, but just something to be aware of. What a people might accept in a grape juice drink might not be so acceptable for perfectionist wine makers. Of course there is always that possibility of something in the juice precipitating out in your bottle down the road. Just playing devils advocate here. Easier than having someone come up with that issue later, after it's happened. "Oh, I wondered about that possiblity..."

 

[troutgod]

I filter my wines so hopefully that will help with any issues. As for the flavor, I have some white grape-peach concentrate I was going to try. I have used wine flavoring once before for a cherry wine but it ended up tasting like cherry cough syrup. So I am a bit hesitant to go that route.
Do you guys have any other suggestions?

 

[Scooter68]

If you do a bench trial and you are only sweetening 1 cup of wine, you are committed anything really. That one cup, even added back in is very unlikely to change the actual flavors of your wine.

OR do both a white grape/peach sweetening on one cup and a simply syrup on a second cup. Again whichever way you go the other isn't going to significantly affect the entire batch.

Is this a 5/6 gallon batch? If it is then the above comments are definite applicable.

 

[stickman]

I agree with @Scooter68 If you add something with tartaric acid or protein, such as juice or concentrate, a precipitate is likely to form. I made a Riesling in the past and used Gewurztraminer concentrate from a kit for back sweetening. After adding the concentrate, something that resembled snowflakes dropped out, I believe it was tartrates. The wine turned out great, but needed additional time to clarify before bottling.

 

[mfzona]

I did this last fall with my Riesling. I used Alexander’s Riesling concentrate (70 Brix) to back sweeten my dry that had already gone through cold stabilization and was clear. It did cloud a little after the addition, but I let it rest for week and then filtered before bottling. It came out super clear in the bottle I haven’t had any tartaric drop out in the bottles. I put it at 1.8% residual sugar and it tastes very nice.