Favorite Fruit Wine

[Tovis]

All of your wines or do you do reds and whites differently? Also what does it do and are your wines generally on the sweet or dry side?

 

[Julie]

lol. All of it! I have Reds, whites, sweet and dry and I age everything for at least a year before drinking. Some need more than a year like elderberry, it is at its best at two years but blackberry is great at one year. Dry reds are better at two years but sweet whites are very good at one year.

 

[Tovis]

What changes in them over time? Just more mellow and complex?

 

[Julie]

Yes, they soften up and are not as harsh

 

[Tenbears]

I agree I have been a mead maker and I rarely bottle before a year, I like to bulk age. Then I age in the bottles another year at 50F. The one exception to the rule is anything with Bananas in it. For example elderberry banana melomel I bulk age 6 months bottle for 6 and drink I find it peters out rather than getting better if not consumed within 2 years. IMHO

 

[jensmith]

They are all my favorite! However Rasberry may be at the top of my list. Closely followed by Blueberry, Blueberry+Table grape blend and Rubarb.
I have made plum wine. The first one was very very good. The following couple batches were just nice. The type of plum used really affected to flavore.


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[cintipam]

My fave is cranapple.

Hey Jen, could you say a little more about your experience with plum wine? I know there are Japanese plums and european plums, also throw in wild plums and that's a lot to choose from. Which have you tried, and how did you rate them? I'm trying to decide if I should bother to plant the wild ones, but I already have some of the other variety. Just not enough to make a straight batch of wine yet.

Pam in cinti

 

[newBendOrfanatic]

In the Jack Keller feature for the sister site, it was noted that Keller's favorite "fruit" wine is wild plum. Interesting feature story.

There is a wild plum winery in SE Oregon that produces an excellent wild plum wine as well as a good wild plum brandy.

As for myself, I am still working on acid balance and fruit quantity for the wild plums that I can harvest. Drinkable, but not outstanding so far.

 

[cintipam]

I appreciate the thought, and I agree that juicy Japanese plums would be a lot easier. Has anyone had experience with the wild plums?

Pam in cinti

 

[cintipam]

Hey sorry I missed your post newBendOrfanatic. I was responding to prior post. I will have to read more from Jack Kellers recipes. Did you base your wild plum on his recipe? How aged is it?

I will have to keep my eyes open for some commercial wildplum to buy and try.

thanks for the input!

Pam in cinti

 

[jensmith]

So far I have only used store bought type plums. Not enough wild ones for wine around here. Even orcherd grown are hard to come by.
The best wine was made from those big extra dark dead ripe plums. The wine was faboulose. 6-7 pounds per galleon. It did need to age 9 months to be good. It took that long to mellow. Nice red color.
The next wine used a vinters harvest canned plums. (3gal recapie) This one used those small yellow fleshed plums. It tasted awful out of the can. Like old stale dry plums. It evenually, with a few fresh peaches, turned into a decent mellow wine, fairly young. Under 6 months.
The next wine used a mix of different plum typs, mix of light purple and yellow fleshed. Those with a yellow flesh and mottled skin were fairly dry. Only a few nice dark red plums. (All these plums were free, so good enough!) Only 5 pounds per galleon. Was drinkable after 7 months. Nice color. Not as deep as the wine using only dark plums, but pretty. Better flavor then the vinters wine. More plum flavor and complexity.

I prefure to eat the dark red juicy plums over the small yellow dry fleshed ones. Guess it stands to reason I prefure my wines the same way. They all turned out to be nice drinking wines. It was just the "hmmm, good" factor that varied.



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[cintipam]

jensmith, excellent helpful info. Just the type I wanted. My trees are fairly young but if the weather cooperates I should have enough to make a batch this year. Last year was abust due to extreme winter, but hopefully this one won't be quite so bad. Still, I should be able to get a mixed bag of types. My faves are the Santa Rosa, very dark tart skin with sweet peachy colored flesh. But I will combine if necessary to make a batch.

Pam in cinti

 

[franki1926]

Cherry, with New Jersey beach Plum a close 2nd

 

[jensmith]

Glad to have been of help! Just remember not to add any acid blend to fresh plums untill after it has fermented and you have done a taste test. Unless you test for acidity first that is. The vinters harvest canned stuff needed a full dose of acid blend, where the real fruit did not need any. Just as a heads up for any newbie who may be reading.

Good luck with your plum crop!


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[x_diver]

My favorite fruit is whatever is on sale or someone gives me.

But I am partial to plum and blackberry. I like mulberry too but it takes forever gather 6lbs to make a gallon.

 

[newBendOrfanatic]

I currently have one test batch of wild plum that is 1.5 years in bottles. Thin, but very decent tasting. One small test batch that is ready for bottling. Added bananas pre-ferment, and it again has decent flavor but perhaps a little thin. One test batch of mead that is ready for bottling. Different and still in waiting mode on early judgment. One 6 gallon batch with several adjustments from suggestions from these forums. Early indications are that this wild plum is improved. I may still break it up into a 3 gallon as is and a 2 gallon with a finishing fpack with the final portion being consumed early. Lol. Finally, I have 40 pounds of plums in the freezer. I will work on this next batch to get more fruit per gallon while still controlling tannin and acidity. If I still had access to inexpensive, domesticated plums, I would go with a mix. Plums are expensive right now, lol.