How to achieve a long finishing wine?

[Skycarp]

Sooooo..... im new to winemaking! I tried my hand at a cherry wine last summer and i think that it turned out to be a good wine. But, it doesnt have a strong finish. If i had to guess i where i went wrong i would say perhaps i didnt use enough cherries? For a 5 gallon batch i used roughly 23 pounds of cherries, or 4.5lbs per gallon. But i honestly have no clue as to how to go about fixing this or what the cause might be. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[JohnT]

I would compare the recipe you used to some of Jack Keller's recipies.

Here is a website...

http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/

 

[TonyR]

You can make it stronger ( more fruit). Can add some oak, age the wine longer.

 

[heatherd]

Sooooo..... im new to winemaking! I tried my hand at a cherry wine last summer and i think that it turned out to be a good wine. But, it doesnt have a strong finish. If i had to guess i where i went wrong i would say perhaps i didnt use enough cherries? For a 5 gallon batch i used roughly 23 pounds of cherries, or 4.5lbs per gallon. But i honestly have no clue as to how to go about fixing this or what the cause might be. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

First, welcome to the hobby and the forum!

I agree that Jack Keller has great recipes for cherry and all other kinds of wine. You can see how many #/gallon he used.

To fix it, one thought would be to add potassium sorbate and sweeten with simple syrup a bit. Maybe that would help the finish, Test with a small portion of your wine rather than the whole 5g.

You could add potassium sorbate, and then add cherry juice to add more flavor.

Otherwise you could make another super-loaded with cherries batch and blend the two together.

Good luck with it!

 

[Skycarp]

Thanks for the advice! I did use a Jack Keller recipe, my finished S.G. was 0.993, so it was a pretty dry wine. I bottled it in February and have drank a few bottles. I am planning on starting another batch in the next week or so and was hoping for some feedback/insight on the subject. I will add a few more Cherries per pound and hopefully be able to age it longer this time around...

On the first batch i used Montrachet yeast because that is what the recipe called for. Should i consider trying another yeast? I loved most everything about this wine except for the slightly dull finish...

 

[Arne]

Next time you open a bottle try adding a bit of sugar to the glass. See if that doesn't help it out. You could try it with a bit of honey also. Arne.

 

[wineforfun]

As @heatherd and @Arne mentioned, I think you needed to backsweeten it. In my experience, I have not found many fruit wines that tasty when completely dry. Backsweeten up to anywhere from 1.000 to 1.010 and I think you will be amazed at the difference.