Use of chemicals in homemade wines

[Coaster]

My google must be biased towards my location or preferences 'cuz I was able to locate several including 3 in east Texas (kinda makes me wonder if Google is spying on me

)


first hit off Google http://www.rushcreekwines.com/production.htm
second hit http://www.crosscreekgroves.com/
third hit http://www.winesparkle.com/fruitwines.html


other leads include these Texas ones below.


http://www.maydellewines.com/products.htm
http://www.pineywoodswines.com/winelist.htm
http://www.brunoandgeorge.com/fruit_wines.htm


You certainly have a nice selection to choose from. I generaly don't see fruit wines advertised either but I saw a great variety of themon my ventures to wineries in both CA and TX.


I am certain that those wines above use checmicals (due to regulations and such) and I believe in the use of chemicals also, if used properly. Jack Keller says it best for me when he describes chemicals as tools and says "I believe in using the best tools available to get the job done." http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/additives.asp I know everyone doesn't follow this train of thought nor do I think that they have too. As I mentioned in another psot, one of my favorite quotes on this site is something to the tune of "There are as many ways to make wine as there are people who enjoy wine".


As for cost, that's a different discussion all together with a number of variables to be considered: commercial vs homebrew (isn't this one of the top 5 - dare I say top 2 reasons we homebrew wines

), purchased base vs homegrown base, grape vs non-grape, etc. One man's expensive $3 wine is another mans heck of a deal $3 wine. I like fruit wines, but I also like grape wines so comparing grape cost to fruit cost isn't really all that important to me. If my only objective was the lowest cost wine, I'd be making a far differenct selection of wines than I do now, in a far different manner. I admire the fact you can make wine for 60 cents. For 30 bottles thats about $18. I guess that's about $10.90 in supplies ($5.10 for corks, $3 for shrink wraps, $1 for yeast, $0.30 for k-meta (sanitize only), $1.50 for labels) leaving about $7 for the base and other stuff (I don't know if you use energizer or nutrient). Very low cost, but not something I have access too (I don't grow my own stuff, sadly).


I'm facinated by all the styles and ways one can make wine (I really want to try a wheat wine one day for my father but waiting two years for it to mellow is mind boggling to me). Thanks for sharing.

 

[smurfe]

OK, my first "Google" search for "100% fruit wines" showed ZERO results. My next search for "100 percent fruit wines" turned up 3 results. And the major one, Tomasello of NJ, produces limited quantity, 5 varieties, the blueberry for export only under a re-labeling contract with Japan where, apparently, the blueberry is in great demand. It should be, it is a fine wine.

The other two are Key West, FL and Lingamore, Mount Airy, MD. These are the only three entries I found on 100 percent fruit wines, Googled. And I have never see any of them in any wine stores, nor advertised. A local winery buys up the commercially unsaleable cultivated blackberry crop (pennies on the dollar) for making a "blackberry flaovred" commercial wine.

So, apparently there are "100% fruit wines" comercially available out there. I'm corrected, and many thanks. But lets take a look at what cost? My "100% fruit varieties" include:
Blackberry
Cultivated Blackberry
Blueberry
Oregon Grape
Elderberry
Strawberry
Cherry (red, black and Byng)
Wild Rose Hip
Plum (Italian prune variety)
Pear (winter hard pear variety)
Grapefruit/Phillipine Mango
Raspberry
Raspberry/Blueberry blend (2r:1b)
Blackberry Port (dry) a blend of blackberry (60%), cherry (35%), oregon grape and raspberry (5% total the two).

This makes a pretty nice wine cellar and good variety. When I add the rhubarb, blackberry/Chablis, blackberry/Burgundy and Elderberry/Burgundy blends it becomes an unmatched wine cellar.

The nice thing about my wines is that the total, true cost per bottle is now about $0.60 a bottle, up from about $0.35 a bottle when I started making wine 10 years ago. And this includes a label (as good as any commercial label but personalized for us and the fruit), a cork and shrink cap.

My labels run about $0.05 each. My wine cellar variety has something for just about every palate. My price per bottle lets me have a lovely cellar - but the grape blends actually run about $3.00 a bottle - a little on the expensive side.

There are numerous places that produce 100% fruit wines. Particularly in the Southern United States. In fact, most wines produced around where I live are indeed fruit wines as the only type of grape that will grow around here readily is muscadines and many do not have a taste for muscadine wines. I myself have yet to try one I really cared for that was home made as they are all too sweet, but I would really like to try a dry muscadine wine.


In regards to 100% fruit wines the best Raspberry wine I have drank from a vineyard was from Smokey Mountain Winery in Gatlinburg Tennessee. It is excellent and award winning (Gold)at the Indy competition.


http://www.smokymountainwinery.com/winelist.html


A side note here is to give credit where it is due in stating that the best Raspberry wine I ever drank period was made by one of our members here Bill B, you will have a real hard time finding a raspberry that can top his, be it commercial or home made. Those that tried it at Winestock can vouch for that!


Right down the road in Pigeon Forge TN is another winery that makes superb wines. The best Cynthiana Wine I ever had was produced there and they make a very nice Blueberry. Right down the road from them is an Apple Orchard that has a winery that makes apple wines.


Around where I live in South Louisiana we have a few vineyards and wineries. Almost everyone of them produces 100% fruit wines from fruits grown in their own vineyards. Here is a link that lists the wines from the various wineries around where I live. These wineries range in distance from 5 miles to 40 miles from my house.


http://www.louisianawines.com/explore.cfm/wines/


As far as costs go, that really wasn't an issue. I just like to give credit to those that is due and a statement that there is no fruit wines available commercially is not correct. I don't really care if a bottle of wine cost 35 cents or 35 dollars, if I like it, I like it.If I don't, I don't. Chemicals added to the wine is not an issue either. I am sure these wineries add sulfite's to their musts but they are made from 100% fruit juices they pressed themselves. I watched them do it at a couple of the places I visited.


I do plan on trying one of your recipes to see how it turns out. I too suffer from sulfite sensitivity which is a shame considering how much I like wine. If I can make some organic, I am game to give it a shot. But as I said, the cost to produce is not a factor to me, or many that I know.Making a great wine is the only importance to me. I look forward to reading up more on your style.


Thanks


Smurfe

Edited by: smurfe

 

[Cracked Cork]

Hi Windy, I didnt see your recipie for 100% elderberry wine, there are
a lot of folks interested in elderberries right now and I would like to
hear about how you make your 100% elderberry wine and how long does it
take to be drinkable? When we started making wine we decided not to add
the K-Meta and ended up a few years later with a few oxidized wines,
are you able to age your for a couple of years without oxidation? How
are you keeping your pear wines from oxidizing?



Crackedcork

OK, my first "Google" search for "100% fruit wines"
showed ZERO results. My next search for "100 percent fruit wines"
turned up 3 results. And the major one, Tomasello of NJ, produces
limited quantity, 5 varieties, the blueberry for export only under a
re-labeling contract with Japan where, apparently, the blueberry is in
great demand. It should be, it is a fine wine.



The other two are Key West, FL and Lingamore, Mount Airy, MD. These
are the only three entries I found on 100 percent fruit wines, Googled.
And I have never see any of them in any wine stores, nor advertised. A
local winery buys up the commercially unsaleable cultivated blackberry
crop (pennies on the dollar) for making a "blackberry flaovred"
commercial wine.



So, apparently there are "100% fruit wines" comercially available
out there. I'm corrected, and many thanks. But lets take a look at what
cost? My "100% fruit varieties" include:

Blackberry

Cultivated Blackberry

Blueberry

Oregon Grape

Elderberry

Strawberry

Cherry (red, black and Byng)

Wild Rose Hip

Plum (Italian prune variety)

Pear (winter hard pear variety)

Grapefruit/Phillipine Mango

Raspberry

Raspberry/Blueberry blend (2r:1b)

Blackberry Port (dry) a blend of blackberry (60%), cherry (35%), oregon grape and raspberry (5% total the two).



This makes a pretty nice wine cellar and good variety. When I add
the rhubarb, blackberry/Chablis, blackberry/Burgundy and
Elderberry/Burgundy blends it becomes an unmatched wine cellar.


The nice thing about my wines is that the total, true cost per
bottle is now about $0.60 a bottle, up from about $0.35 a bottle when I
started making wine 10 years ago. And this includes a label (as good as
any commercial label but personalized for us and the fruit), a cork and
shrink cap.



My labels run about $0.05 each. My wine cellar variety has
something for just about every palate. My price per bottle lets me have
a lovely cellar - but the grape blends actually run about $3.00 a
bottle - a little on the expensive side.

 

[windy0062]

First, Coaster, I thank you for sharing. I have learned a whole lot about wines and winemaking just from the responses to my first three posts. Amazing what one can learn if one only keeps an open mind? Again thanks. Btw, I did my Google search with "100% fruit wines" (including the quotes to limit it to just that topic) with ZERO links returned and "100 per cent fruit wines" with 3 links turned up. So if you put your search in quotes you will definitely limit the responses you get.

"We" began "making our own wine" about 1992, in a wine store, where they actually do all the work except the bottling and corking. And we bought enough bottles that we had perhaps 10 cases of bottles at any given time. some full and some empty. And my sweetie quickly came to the conclusion that she liked reds better than whites.

Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say....so for we impoverished few who have expensive tastes.... Actually, a friend of mine borrowed our car (and me to drive) to go to Spagnols for grape juice to make wine. He purchased "?" galllons (took us two trips plus he made a third in a borrowed pickup) and we returned home with 5-6 70-liter carboys and 6 ea 6-gal pails of Merlot in one load and the same of Cabernet Sauvignon in the second load. Poor car!

I figured 'Heck, if he can make wine from juice, I can, too' and bought 10 litres, just enough to nearly fill a 3-gal. ice cream pail. I drilled a hole in the lid, purchazed an air lock and cork that fit, some yeast and proceeded to "make my first wine"! This cost about $2.00 a litre on sale (every February, 25% off everything in the store), so I figured about $2.00 a bottle with cork and label and when we tasted it, it was as good as or better than anything in the stores, and they ran from $10 a bottle up!

As I rode the busses and sky train to and from town to computer shows, etc (cheaper than parking the car) I talked to people who made wine at home and the reports I got were that blackberry wine was maybe the best of all homemade fruit wines? And maybe even better than most commercial grape wines? Came summer and we went out and picked blackberries - 12 gallons of fruit made 8 gallons of wine, more went into jam and pies. The wine was so strong in flavor we cut it 3:1 for coolers and it was still strong....but goooooood! We decided to cut down.

Summer of 1997 we picked 12 gallons of berries for wine and made 13 gallons. For 2007 we reduced it again to 3 gallons of berries for 4 gallons of wine, then 3 berries to 6 wine. After a few years of that, 4 years ago we decided it was just too weak and went back to 1:1 - or 3 gallons of berries producting about 3 1/4 gallons of wine.

Its full-bodied, fruity, blackberry for sure. And along the way I started keeping track of exactly how much it cost. First, of course, my wife, all our friends and I all agree that the blackberry wine is the equal, if not the superior, of any wine we can buy at any price. And it turned out that it was costing, with yeast, sugar, bottled water, corks and labels, about $0.35 a bottle to make.

We picked up most of our bottles from recycling (I now have 60 cases of empties - some [about 24 cases] are full - and will need another 40 cases before this year is over), which at that time was free. New bottles are cost-prohibitive at $1 a bottle. And now, with a deposit, to get them from recycling they still cost $0.25 each and have to be thoroughly cleaned.

But, my sweetie and I go through about 400 bottles of wine a year, plus gifts, and keeping the cost down to $300 or so a year is far better than doing it commercially for $6000 or so? Windy

 

[windy0062]

Reply 2: sorry I missed this part of the post.

I haven't made up my 100% elderberry recipe nor my elderburg recipe yet. But, basically, they are:

2 sets of: 2.75 gallons filtered water, 10 lb granulated sugar, 2 gallon (not de-stemmed) elderberries right off the tree (late September to early October hereabouts), 1 pkg of EC-1118 champagne yeast, 50 mg yeast nutrient.

De-stem the elderberries (like destemming grapes - mostly de-stemmed), you should get about 1 gallon of berries this way. Dissolve the sugar in the water, put the elderberries in the water, add yeast nutrient, sprinkle the yeast over the surfact and let react for an hour or two. Then stir the yeast into the mix. Better to use 4-gallon prime fermenters if you have them.

Let ferment for 7 days, rack and freeze the fruit, combine the two pails of wine, let ferment out (use heating pad if you don't have it up to 70 degrees F) another 21 days. Age in air-tight carboy for 30 days, use small package of French oak chips, let stand on oak chips for 7-21 days for the full flavor of the oak chips. Bottle when you are ready. Let bottle age for a year before drinking. It will be a very astringent wine.

Later on, add the elderberries to 6 gallons of Burgundy juice or a Burgundy wine kit. Let ferment on the fruit for 7 days. Rack, discard fruit, let burgundy ferment out another 21 days. Repeat steps as in the elderberry above. It will not be as astringent as the pure elderberry. I'll start my new elderberry project in March (they're in the freezer) when I have the rest of the wine cleared out of my cellar.

Alternative: Elderberry tonic. Take the ripe elderberries and extract the juice (squeezing in a mesh bag), use juice as is or mix with a "brandy-strength" pure unflavored alcohol (about 45 proof). My blackberry picking friend is doing this project as I write so we have no idea of how it might turn out, but we'll know in another 3-6 months when we try it out! Windy