Hi,
Over the past year, I have made about ten different fruit and berry wines. For most of them, I have followed Jack Keller's recipes, but WineMaker has also been an inspiration. I think most of the wines have turned out okay, and the sparkling strawberry wine in particular was good. However, a common theme with all these wines is that they are very light and sometimes a bit watery; to be kind, you could say they are nice summer wines.
Then I found this fantastic forum and several posts that mentioned using 100% fruit and berries, highlighting that no winemaker dilutes their grape must and no cider maker dilutes their apple must. Therefore, I have started to reconsider the recipes I have used. At the same time, if I understand things correctly, one reason fruit and berry wines are diluted with water is because of their high TA levels. But surely, there must be other ways to handle this? I have seen comments here recommending diluting with apples or pears. But what else could I use?
I think the idea of 100% fruit or berry wines is something I would happily experiment with, but before I start, I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences. If you have recommendations on or examples of how to make, for instance, strawberry or blueberry wines without diluting them with water, it would be very interesting to hear about it.
