Making tokay plum wine

[wood1954]

My tree was loaded with plums this year so I picked 40 lbs of plums for wine. The plums are a nice pink skin with yellow flesh. After mashing them in a container using my boots I put the mush in paint strainer bags and added 6 gallons of water and 16 lbs of sugar along with pectin and amalase enzymes. I also adjusted the ph to about 3.56 with potassium bicarbonate. It’s been fermenting for a week but has only gotten to sg 1.050 so far, so I added 15 grams of Fermaid O today. Right now the must is a nice red color with a really nice aroma to it. I took out the bags of plums yesterday and have about 10 gallons of must. I think I have added enough sugar as the plums were about 10 Brix. I’m hoping to ferment to dry and then back sweeten next year before I bottle. Also I used three year old Avante yeast which should metabolize 20-30% of the malic acid.

 

[balatonwine]

By Tokay do you mean Tokaj? The Hungarian wine region? If so, see my funny side note.

Funny side note (Intended for humor mostly by me living in the EU... haha so the joke is on me): If so, you can not make Tokaj wine from plumbs under EU law. For one thing Tokaj is a Protected Designation of Origin. And second, by EU law, only grapes can make "wine". No such thing as fruit "wine". Yes, yes, one can make an alcoholic beverage from fruit. But one can not call it "wine". And you can not call it Tokaj. Kind of like you can only call it Champaign if it comes from the Champaign region of France.

Ironically, having had some of my own business trademarks infringed on over the years, I do kind of understand the EU laws. But I made some great fruit wine here, and darn it... I could not sell it as wine. There are some rational protective rights, and some not so rational ones.

 

[winemanden]

By Tokay do you mean Tokaj? The Hungarian wine region? If so, see my funny side note.

Funny side note (Intended for humor mostly by me living in the EU... haha so the joke is on me): If so, you can not make Tokaj wine from plumbs under EU law. For one thing Tokaj is a Protected Designation of Origin. And second, by EU law, only grapes can make "wine". No such thing as fruit "wine". Yes, yes, one can make an alcoholic beverage from fruit. But one can not call it "wine". And you can not call it Tokaj. Kind of like you can only call it Champaign if it comes from the Champaign region of France.

Ironically, having had some of my own business trademarks infringed on over the years, I do kind of understand the EU laws. But I made some great fruit wine here, and darn it... I could not sell it as wine. There are some rational protective rights, and some not so rational ones.

I've seen it labelled both ways in the UK. As to making Tokay / Tokaj from plums, no way!

You can no doubt make an excellent Dessert wine and call it Tokay outside the EU. After all, lots of Forum members outside of EU make excellent Port.

 

[wood1954]

I guess it's actually a toka plum, not tokay, i think tokay is a grape? Anyway the must smells fantastic right now, if i can bottle it with that bouquet im going to have some excellent wine. also it sat at 1.050 for three days, i started some yeast in diluted must and added it last nite and today it seems to be bubbling away again.

 

[balatonwine]

You can no doubt make an excellent Dessert wine and call it Tokay outside the EU. After all, lots of Forum members outside of EU make excellent Port.

Protected Designation of Origin is a commercial issue. So that the product conforms to certain "standards". That is the labels are about wine, or cheese, or whatever, for sale. And, yes, treaties make it also official outside the EU.

But... One can label home made wine anything they want. Wine made in the "Port" style may be called Port wines by their maker if not sold. But... I can even label my home made Dandelion wine Port if I wanted to..... If I do not try to sell it as "Port".

 

[m_kluch]

I guess it's actually a toka plum, not tokay, i think tokay is a grape? Anyway the must smells fantastic right now, if i can bottle it with that bouquet im going to have some excellent wine. also it sat at 1.050 for three days, i started some yeast in diluted must and added it last nite and today it seems to be bubbling away again.

I planted a Toka plum this spring. Wondering if you have another plum tree nearby or not. Toka are supposed to be self fertile…I hope that’s the case.
How did your wine ferment? Did it go dry? Any pictures you can post so we can see the color?

 

[wood1954]

I think the toka is self fertile, this year we had a lot of plums. We have another plum tree nearby but they don’t flower at the same time. The wine fermented dry and has a nice candy taste. I used 5 lbs of plums for 8 gallons.ph is 3.56, I think it started MLF and I stopped it with so2. I think it’s going to be very enjoyable.