some questions about making apple wine

[olusteebus]

I want to make a dry apple wine that my wife might like. She likes pinot grigio and I briefly saw somewhere that you could make apple wine taste similar to pinot grigio.

My first question is should I use bottled juice, fresh juice if I can find it or fresh cider which I can find.

What yeast? Would d47 be a choice?

anyh suggestions to making a good dry apple wine will be appreciated.

 

[GreginND]

I used fresh pressed apple juice for my apple wine. And I used 71b for the yeast. It underwent spontaneous MLF so I left it dry. It turned out to be a nice pleasant wine.

Now, most say the best thing to do is use a variety of apples. I had only one variety - Haralson. But they were on the tart side which worked out well for me. You want to have a good acidity in apple wine. You can use bottled juice. But I don't know what kind of apples are in it. But it's easy enough to experiment with.

 

[olusteebus]

Thanks. I have a fruit press that I made out of 2x4s and I use a bucket with a paint strainer bag to hold the juice. I made it for muscadines but it did not work well. I wonder if it would crush apples good enough to juice. If I did and added the pulp and some enzyme in the ferment bucket, would the wine clear easily.

 

[dralarms]

Freeze your apples first. I make wine out of golden delious apples and another out of arkansas black apples. Both very good and both very different.