Troubles with red berry wines...

[Ty520]

I've been having a running issue with wines made with red berries

Cherry, blackberry, raspberry - they all have had a similar, unpleasant earthy, musty vegetal flavor profile to them. I can never seem to get any nice, bright, fruity qualities to come forward.

the flavor has been oddly similar in each, as well

So far, I've considered none of my country wines using red berries worth drinking, even after up to two years of aging.

 

[Raptor99]

Curious. I have made blueberry, cranberry, and elderberry. They are some of our family favorites. I didn't really like my cherry wine so far, but I used mostly frozen sweet cherries. Next time I plan to use tart cherry concentrate.

Do you want to share your process, including how you process the fresh fruit?

 

[raspberry]

I've been having a running issue with wines made with red berries

Cherry, blackberry, raspberry - they all have had a similar, unpleasant earthy, musty vegetal flavor profile to them. I can never seem to get any nice, bright, fruity qualities to come forward.

the flavor has been oddly similar in each, as well

So far, I've considered none of my country wines using red berries worth drinking, even after up to two years of aging.

have you ever back sweetened it you will get more fruit forward in flavor

 

[Rice_Guy]

Howdy Ty; when you have this issue with so many types of wine I start to wonder about your YAN dosing on all your wines? If you are low on nitrogen you will produce H2S which initially obscures the fruity aromas/ covers the fruit/ can be removed, ,, and eventually reacts to produce assorted mercaptans which can have earthy or fried chicken notes and can never be removed. A key question here is do you make other types of fruit which do not have this defect? , ,,, My current nitrogen protocol is Fermaid O followed by K at 1/3 sugar reduction.

? Have you found anyone who can taste some of these batches and give an opinion? Have you entered any of these in a contest to have them judged?

I have made cherry and black raspberry. With these I am seeing blue ribbons at ten month age and a decline after a year to 18 months. My descriptor on the pandemic batches which sat an extra year in carboy is astringent/ drying the mouth combined with loss of fresh fruit/ sort of metallic. From reading on flavors my guess is with cherry and raspberry I have small chain tannin (catechin) which complex into molecules that are large enough to produce astringent notes. Blackberry has lots of phenolic compounds so I would expect similar behavior.

- they all have had a similar, unpleasant earthy, musty vegetal flavor profile to them. I can never seem to get any nice, bright, fruity qualities to come forward., , , , even after up to two years of aging.

 

[Ty520]

Curious. I have made blueberry, cranberry, and elderberry. They are some of our family favorites. I didn't really like my cherry wine so far, but I used mostly frozen sweet cherries. Next time I plan to use tart cherry concentrate.

Do you want to share your process, including how you process the fresh fruit?

My blackberry was fresh fruit, but my cherry was concentrate. For the blackberry, i followed jack Keller's recipe to the t. For the cherry, I brought it to 1092 og, then treated it the same, sans maceration process.

 

[Rembee]

My blackberry was fresh fruit, but my cherry was concentrate. For the blackberry, i followed jack Keller's recipe to the t. For the cherry, I brought it to 1092 og, then treated it the same, sans maceration process.

Jack Keller's recipes are always light in the amount of fruit additions. I have found throughout the years that doubling or even tripling the amounts of fruit from his recipes brings more forward the fruit flavor that your seeking. I typically now add 6 to 10 lbs of fruit per gallon for a much better mouth feel and fruit flavor.

 

[winemanden]

Jack Keller's recipes are always light in the amount of fruit additions. I have found throughout the years that doubling or even tripling the amounts of fruit from his recipes brings more forward the fruit flavor that your seeking. I typically now add 6 to 10 lbs of fruit per gallon for a much better mouth feel and fruit flavor.

It annoys me when people criticise the amount of fruit in Jack Keller's recipes. Wines you make for yourself are mostly to your own taste not Jack's. A lot of top class wines are quite delicate to taste, they might not smack you in the chops like some do, but that doesn't mean they're not good wines.

I'm not knocking people who alter the amount of fruit in Jack's recipes, after all a recipe is just a guide. Don't forget to do the checks if you do, or you might upset the balance of the wine.

Jack Keller wrote for the Amateur Winemaker, so they must have they must have thought he was a good winemaker. He also won a lot of medals for his wines.

I've often thought when in the supermarket, I often you see products labelled, New Improved Recipe. "If the original recipe was a good one, why do they need to change it?"

 

[Rembee]

It annoys me when people criticise the amount of fruit in Jack Keller's recipes. Wines you make for yourself are mostly to your own taste not Jack's. A lot of top class wines are quite delicate to taste, they might not smack you in the chops like some do, but that doesn't mean they're not good wines.

I'm not knocking people who alter the amount of fruit in Jack's recipes, after all a recipe is just a guide. Don't forget to do the checks if you do, or you might upset the balance of the wine.

Jack Keller wrote for the Amateur Winemaker, so they must have they must have thought he was a good winemaker. He also won a lot of medals for his wines.

I was not criticizing the amount of fruit used in Jack Keller's recipes. I was merely stating a fact from my own experiences and it is my opinion.
You must get annoyed very often because there are many here who share my opinion.
I myself started off using Jack's recipes and learnt a lot by doing so.
I am not sorry that I annoyed you! Nor am I sorry if this annoys you. It sounds like it's a personal problem with you being annoyed.
If I have annoyed you again, please by all means, ignore me, and get on with life!!

 

[Rice_Guy]

The original post is asking about brighter flavor/ aroma. ,, Always more solids and less water gives more flavor. What happens with the aromatics is another approach to brighter flavor. Yes there are process defects that can mask fruity aromatics and industry has big enough tank volume and nitrogen flushing and a quality lab that monitors tank head space or even chemicals to add that can reduce the rate of shelf life loss. ,,,, but most home wine makers don’t have these tools. What tools are then left?

It annoys me when people criticise the amount of fruit in Jack Keller's recipes. Wines you make for yourself are mostly to your own taste not Jack's. A lot of top class wines are quite delicate to taste, they might not smack you in the chops like some do, but that doesn't mean they're not good wines. . . . .I've often thought when in the supermarket, I often you see products labelled, New Improved Recipe. "If the original recipe was a good one, why do they need to change it?"

WHY?
a lab bench point of view is we usually are given a improvement project to reduce the cost of a product, sometimes the supplier is a problem as the supplier who dumped bleach into the vegetable’s quench water to reduce micro issues, ,,, or there may be a more functional ingredient as WONF (Virginia Dare natural flavors are always fantastic,) which cuts the cost of everything else ,,, but everything for the supermarket has a COST OF GOODS tied to it, and water is cheap.

 

[Scooter68]

Something to consider for both sides of the "How much fruit is enough?" camps
I don't pretend to have a love for light delicate flavors so a lot of the white wines I've had didn't impress me. Red wines.... well I've never found one I liked, they are always too bold for my likening. It might just be that I'm not a true traditional wine person. I've had a couple of White Zin's that I liked but as to really liking most grape wines.... I just personally don't get much from them.
The first wine I really did enjoy was slightly sweet Apple wine that I enjoyed in a touristy restaurant in Mitte Stadt Weisbaden. In fact it was the inability to find an apple wine in the states that got me to thinking about making my own and now 6 years later....
Anyway back to the point.
I'm a Country Fruit wine maker and generally speaking I prefer wines with very solid flavor and more often than not just slightly sweet. So for me my fruit wines have to start with a higher fruit content. I don't go to the extreme end ZERO water additions in most cases but generally speaking Prefer somewhat more than 5 to 6 pounds of fruit for most wines.
Having said that my first peach wine certainly did not conform to that standard. I called it a "light on the palate" wine as the peach flavor was very delicate and it was more like a very light white wine. Since then pretty much all my wines are full fruit flavored wines and there is no way to mistake my wines for a red grape wine or white grape wine. And each year I try to make at least one batch that is a dessert wine - 15% ABV and sweet enough to cover that burn (Bottling most of my dessert wines at an SG of 1.014.) My goal with the dessert wine is to have a wine that satisfies as a slow sipper with a full serving of 2-3 oz tops.

That's just my approach to fruit wine making along with the majority of my wines being single variety fruit not blends of different fruits with a few notable exceptions - Peach-mango and my Triple Berry wine (wild blackberries wild black raspberries and red raspberries) The latter of the two was out of necessity as I didn't have enough red or black raspberries for even a 1 gallon batch but by adding some of our wild blackberries I ended up with a knock your socks off flavor.

The reason I've never made a Jack Keller recipe wine is that he seems to do a lot of additions of raisins or other things to country fruit wines and while that may win wine awards, it just never appealed to me. I'm not a Boones Farm wine person but I do like to have a fruit wine where there is no question about "Does it have enough fruit in it?"

 

[winemaker81]

It annoys me when people criticise the amount of fruit in Jack Keller's recipes.

H E Bravery's Successful Wine Making At Home was my first book. Bravery was very popular in the 60's and 70's, and winemaking clubs formed in the USA as a result. Why was he so popular? His books were the first (as far as I can determine ) to address home winemaking from what was a scientific POV at that time. He wrote plainly and was easy to understand.

However, he was a low fruit proponent and stated that he didn't want the wine to taste like the fruit -- he appeared to be trying to make grape wine without grapes. Some of my early fruit wines were made following his recipes, and the result was "meh". Underwhelming.

Keller also hit a sweet spot, around the rise of kits, which got more folks into winemaking. He was highly prolific and was great at disseminating information. He was, IMO, the prototype for the members of this forum, as he shared his knowledge freely -- a great example to follow.

Many of Keller's recipes are better than Bravery's -- it may be that Keller learned from Bravery, and improved upon that.

From what I've read, the common opinion is that Keller's recipes are generally low in fruit. It appears that most folks want wine that smells and tastes like the base fruit, and to make that requires more fruit.

It does not take away from Keller's legacy -- if anything it's the building blocks of the next generation of home winemakers.

 

[winemanden]

I was not criticizing the amount of fruit used in Jack Keller's recipes. I was merely stating a fact from my own experiences and it is my opinion.
You must get annoyed very often because there are many here who share my opinion.
I myself started off using Jack's recipes and learnt a lot by doing so.
I am not sorry that I annoyed you! Nor am I sorry if this annoys you. It sounds like it's a personal problem with you being annoyed.
If I have annoyed you again, please by all means, ignore me, and get on with life!!

I'm here, still living. I wasn't knocking you , I get annoyed when people say things like that when the late Jack Keller can't reply.
No personal offence intended, none taken.

 

[ChuckD]

Red wines.... well I've never found one I liked

WHAAAAAAT

Is there a moderator who can banish this man to the outer darkness? I need to find my fainting couch

 

[Rembee]

I just felt out of no where you were attacking my advice for which I didn't know why. No hard feelings here either. My advice will always be just that, take it or leave it

 

[Raptor99]

When I started, I learned a lot from Jack Keller's recipes. But like @Scooter68, I prefer a more bold fruit flavor. The great thing about making your own wine is that you can make it however you want. Jack Keller's recipes have been mentioned numerous times when someone used 2-3 lbs. of fruit per gallon, and then asked why their wine was watery and lacking in fruit flavor. In those cases my advice is "use more fruit."

 

[BABRU]

I must admit to having been shocked reading a post stating: “It annoys me when people criticize…”.

 

[VinesnBines]

In an attempt to get some assistance to the OP; the amount of fruit in the recipe will not result in the flavors mentioned.

Cherry, blackberry, raspberry - they all have had a similar, unpleasant earthy, musty vegetal flavor profile to them. I can never seem to get any nice, bright, fruity qualities to come forward.

the flavor has been oddly similar in each, as well

I have a few more questions;

1. Have you made other wines; fruit (country), grape, kit, juice bucket? What kinds?
2. Is the problem only with the batches you mention? This may be obvious.
3. Have you made more than one batch of the cherry, blackberry, raspberry and if so do all have the same problem.
4. At what point do you notice the off flavor, before or after bottling? Are you tasting each batch at different bottle aging points?
5. Are you back sweetening?
6. What yeast are you using? Are you adding nutrients in the primary fermentation?
7. How are you bulk aging; bucket, carboy and how long?
8. What size batches are you making?
9. Finally are you using natural corks or synthetic?

Okay a lot of questions. The answers will narrow down the issues and the potential pitfalls.

 

[Scooter68]

WHAAAAAAT

Is there a moderator who can banish this man to the outer darkness? I need to find my fainting couch

OH NO Mr Bill !

 

[hounddawg]

Jack Keller was very knowledgeable , but he was like everyone of us, he made to suit himself as all of us should, yes there is overlap among us, but there are differences as well. on here,,, many when they hear sweet, think of me, my SG's are all on country wines, my SG's used on a grape would be overly sweet, grape is a fruit, but a fruit of a difference, on a country wine,, SG have a big differences ,, fruits and berries to get them to taste like the fruit/berry straight off the tree/bush/briar patch, must be back sweetened, and even though my SG's sound supper sweet, they are not, AS MR. KELLER liked he wines his way, as did many others, does not diminish his contribution to Wine, not in any way at all,,, I learned when young to make country wines the old way, which was to make wines with almost nothing ,,, the deep south, was a different world, you made do with what you had, Period,,,, i make my wines way fruit or berry heavy, and i don't think Jack Keller would hold that against me, nor you, I use't to read every word he wrote, yes his and my likes were totally different, yet there were things that could be learnt, in the post above i seen no slight to Jack Keller at all. merely a acknowledgement of different styles,, I LIKE my wines to taste just like fresh fruit, but that is just me suiting myself, the same can be said of this forum, here people freely share their knowledge, both with people that like what they like and with others that like their wines differently..
Richard

 

[Bill Pet]

Well said.