Raisin Sherry- Backsweeten?

[CortneyD]

Hi All-
I've got a batch of Christmassy Prune/Raisin Spiced Sherry that is just about ready for bottling. Its a recipe that's meant to be aged at least 3 years before drinking.
I just tasted it and the flavors are good, its got good complexity and depth, but its obviously a little bit like jet fuel since its been fortified with Brandy. Its strong.
Is this something I want to back sweeten to taste before bottling or should I just get it in the bottle and let it develop? I'm not a fan of super sweet stuff, so I wouldn't be going bonkers, but I also want the end product to be nice and drinkable. But its my first batch so I don't want to tinker too much? Any advice?

 

[hawkwing]

I personally like the sweet Cream Sherrys. You could try sweetening a small amount and see if you like it before doing the whole batch. You probably want in the 90-120g/L of residual sugars. You probably should add k-meta and k-sorbate though. Even with high alcohol content I read there is still some reason to add it. Can’t remember if it was something to do with crystals forming or something like that.

 

[winemaker81]

I prefer dry Sherry, but from the description I suspect a bit of backsweetening may be called for.

Keep in mind that backsweetening means adding sugar -- it doesn't specify how much. My tastes run to dry wine, and I've backsweetened apple wine from 0.990 to 0.994. YMMV

 

[BigDaveK]

This endeavor has become a science project for me. I have no where near the experience needed to guesstimate how something will taste 6 months or a year from now. I'm a great fan of 375ml bottles. I have multiple batches that were lightly sweetened, bottled, sweetened some more, bottled. My tomato wine tastes shockingly good bone dry so I may do dry, barely sweet, lightly sweet when the time comes. In other words, all your bottles don't have to be the same.