first white wine

[maestro81]

Hey everyone,
Well, after becoming successful at home brewing my own beer, I have begun my adventures into home wine. I must say, so far I'm enjoying it, aside from some clean up after the fact, HA HA HA.

Regardless, I was wondering about a white wine I want to make for my wife. She's not a big drinker and I am. Being first generation Canadian from Italy, I believe that red wine should be the only one drank.

But I digress. I am currently making my wines from kits. And my question is:

How can I turn a standard Riesling into a fruit infused wine? Specifically, I would like to make a peach or pear or nectarine infused white wine. My thinking is that I would simply place cut up "fruit of choice" and place it into primary fermentation.

Thoughts, ideas?

Thanks all!

 

[richmke]

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f61/making-fpac-44497/

 

[Deezil]

You've got the right idea; you can put in the primary, or cut it up smaller and rack onto the fruit in a carboy.

The first option will give you the fermented fruit flavor, which isn't a bad thing.

The secondary option, will give you more of a fresh fruit flavor.

In the first option, the sugars, vitamins and minerals in the fruit will be greatly consumed by the yeast; you'll want to add the fruit pre-fermentation so that you can apply pectic enzyme. Your fruit choice will impact both the sugar and acidity, and depending on the ripeness of the fruit, may require some adjusting.

The second option makes the yeast eat off the sugars from the kit, allowing more of the fruit sugars to remain in the finished product. It will still impact sugar and acidity levels, but the heat generated from the fermentation and the actual yeast activity won't be able to morph the original fruit flavor to the same degree.

 

[salcoco]

why ruin a good Riesling? make a wine from the fruit, get all the flavor required.

 

[JohnT]

If I may, I would like to suggest that you are limiting yourself and are putting your batch of wine at risk.

Given that this is your first batch of white wine, I assume that you do not have a "tried and true" recipe for fruit infused wine.

Keep in mind that what you add will effect all 2 cases of wine (assuming that you are making a 5 gal batch).

Try this instead.. Make the Riesling without adding any additional fruit and bottle it. You can then add fruit to the finished wine on a bottle by bottle basis.

This way, if you are in the mood for a pure Riesling, just pour a glass. If you are in the mood for peach, cut up some peaches into a pitcher and pour a bottle of Riesling over it. You can experiment this way, find that perfect recipe, and also have a variety of options!

 

[Boatboy24]

Welcome to WMT, Maestro!

I'll agree with John and Sal. Make the Riesling, then infuse as you go. This gives you flexibility without being tied to a few cases of peach infused Riesling. If you want a peachy wine, then make one from fresh peaches. Another option would be to try the "Mist" style kits. These are sweet wines, but offer a base such as Riesling, Chardonnay, etc. with a flavor pac. In fact, I think one manufacturer has a Peach Chardonnay.

Edit: Mosti Mondiale, RJ Spagnols and WineXpert all have 'peach' wine kits that are based on chardonnay.