Cranberry and Grape Wine Blend

[my wine]

I made a cranberry wine that tastes pretty good but is a bit too dry and has no body. I was thinking of blending it with some semi-sweet red wine, a blend of merlot, cab franc and cab sav. That wine is too sweet for me. So the blending seemed a good idea.

The ratio would depend on the sweetness but I'm expecting 80 percent cranberry to 20 grape wine. Has anyone blended grape wine with cranberry wine? What were the results? I suppose it's all fruit wine in the end.

Cranberry; interesting long flavor notes, no actual tannin, good aromatics, exceptionally high acid and low on sugar. Looking at this part of the country eating apples blend well since they can be low acid, low on long flavor notes and moderate on aromatics. ,,, I would look for any low acid juice to blend with cranberry. (Several batches; pH 2.6-2.8/ TA 2.8-3.2%/ grav 1.038-1.040)

I found this from Rice Guy in a different thread and will keep it in mind when blending. Thanks!

 

[Rice_Guy]

where to balance TA on wine; > Pearsons square can be used on acid balance
View attachment 81200
after club contest this year I collected eight first place wines which are the red triangles
NOTE: TA is one of several quality traits which a first place wine has as absence of flavor defect, appropriate aroma for the variety and clarity , , , etc.
NOTE: The sample set "cloud" is primarily commercial wines, with some collected in the vinters club and here on WineMakingTalk

Using cranberry i Put it at about 25%.
A cranberry where acids are diluted with water to get into the normal TA range will have less solids/ thinness. A beverage industry method to build mouth feel is gum arabic addition or glycerine or a low sweetness dextrin. Do a bench trial/ do you have numbers to run Pearson’s square?
Unusually sweet wines (based on SG number) are on the market, the ones I have seen balance that flavor against either TA or tannins.

 

[my wine]

Do a bench trial/ do you have numbers to run Pearson’s square?

I'm pretty sure I have the numbers for the cranberry wine. Not sure if I have them for the grape wine. I planned on doing a bench trial to find the acceptable ratio. But I could take current ph measures and use those to be representative of acid. Of course, I only used the square for alcohol balancing in the past. A new learning experience!

 

[winemaker81]

I haven't tried anything like this, but a bench test is good.

 

[Rice_Guy]

! If the buffering capacity is similar pH is a fair estimate. example watermelon juice and the grand kids teething drool are similar TA so it would work. BUT if I took Crest toothpaste which is highly buffered and mixed with a grape wine the toothpaste will hold the pH ~7.0 ,,, or if I took watermelon/ low TA against cranberry/ high TA the cranberry wins.

a new learning experience (oh s$#t) for me too, about five years back

I'm pretty sure I have the numbers for the cranberry wine. Not sure if I have them for the grape wine. I planned on doing a bench trial to find the acceptable ratio. But I could take current ph measures and use those to be representative of acid. Of course, I only used the square for alcohol balancing in the past. A new learning experience!

 

[my wine]

! If the buffering capacity is similar pH is a fair estimate. example watermelon juice and the grand kids teething drool are similar TA so it would work. BUT if I took Crest toothpaste which is highly buffered and mixed with a grape wine the toothpaste will hold the pH ~7.0 ,,, or if I took watermelon/ low TA against cranberry/ high TA the cranberry wins.

I looked over my notes for both wines. I don't have TA measures but I do have pH numbers and I needed to adjust the pH for both for different reasons.

I added 3.5 teaspoons of acid blend mid-fermentation to the kit sweet red wine and moved the pH from 3.94 to final pH of 3.74.

8# of cranberries, 2# of granny smith apples and 2# of raisins yielded over 4 gallons of cranberry wine. Prior to fermenting, I added enough calcium hydroxide to move the pH from 3.10 to 3.80. Fermenting moved the pH to 3.56. Afterwards I added cranberry concentrate to improve flavor but I don't know the resultant pH which is likely slightly more acidic. I'll assume it is 3.54 for discussions sake as I don't want to open it up to measure pH until I'm ready to blend.

Clearly I don't have toothpaste. Without having much experience, and even with the pickling lime in the cranberry wine, I'm guessing they are similarly buffered. Thoughts?

 

[Rice_Guy]

Flavor trials will be needed. The TA is hard to guess.

In the link above I quoted that for me cranberry juice has ranged from 2.8% to 3.2% TA. A grape is typically 0.6 to 0.7% TA. This is complicated since you said you added calcium hydroxide (very fast reacting). Possibly you had calcium carbonate (slow reacting chemical).

 

[Vinobeau]

I'm a bit late in joining this, but I have often blended Cranberry with Wild Grape wine. I've usually blended to improve / mellow, the grape wine, but not always. I've also blended Elderberry with the Cranberry.