Blending Advice Needed

[Cooljd1525]

Almost ready to bottle 3 gallons of blackberry wine. Wine is clear but the ABV is a little high and I would like a little more sweetness.

I am looking to blend this blackberry wine with another wine to resolve the high alcohol level issue, while giving it a little more sweetness.

Any suggestions???

 

[distancerunner]

What are your blending choices?

What do you have?

 

[winemaker81]

Both requirements are actually simple. If you know the ABV of both wines, you can determine the blend that gives you the desired ABV.

Then taste test the blend, adding sugar to taste. There's some wiggle room on the final ABV, so you may need to test blends that are close to the calculated one. I use a medical syringe to make 100 ml samples.

Once you have the blend and the ratio of sugar that works, make the blend. Then stabilize with sorbate + K-meta, and backsweeten.

 

[Cooljd1525]

At this time, I don’t have any wine to blend with this. I guess I was thinking of blending a bulk commercial wine with it.

I know, not the best choice but was looking for a faster option before bottling.

 

[winemaker81]

Choose a compatible wine, and definitely taste test before committing. Keep in mind that blending a lesser wine into a better wine merely creates more of the lesser wine.

Another option is to leave the wine in bulk and make another, lower ABV wine to blend with.

 

[Cooljd1525]

Thank you for the advice! I will probably just leave it and make another wine with a lower ABV to blend.

Thanks again!

 

[winemaker81]

Thank you for the advice! I will probably just leave it and make another wine with a lower ABV to blend.

Thanks again!

Happy to help!

 

[Rice_Guy]

Welcome to WMT

I might try a few cans of a dry cider. There are varieties with cherry or peach or even traditional tannic apple. Pearson’s Square lets you calculate the finished ABV. If using a sugary product play safe and add K sorbate.

 

[StimVino]

Almost ready to bottle 3 gallons of blackberry wine. Wine is clear but the ABV is a little high and I would like a little more sweetness.

I am looking to blend this blackberry wine with another wine to resolve the high alcohol level issue, while giving it a little more sweetness.

Any suggestions???

I would use Global Vitners Red Grape Concentrate for backsweetening as opposed to simple syrup. I’ve found the flavor to be better using concentrates and stays integrated longer whereas simple syrup or sugar seems to continually get stronger overtime so its easy to overdo it. For your ABV issue, I think blending with a low alcohol Merlot would do the trick, but would need to see the numbers / quantities. Of course, advice above is solid and would need to sorbate with any sugar addition.

 

[winemaker81]

I would use Global Vitners Red Grape Concentrate for backsweetening as opposed to simple syrup.

Good idea. In that same vein, I backsweetened Metheglin (Mead with spices) with undiluted frozen apple juice concentrate, which transformed it.