What fruit/berries are you adding to your kits?

[jgnin]

Recently started two kits, a Chardonnay, and a Merlot. The kits alone are alright but a little bland on the flavor side. I decided after reading various threads on here to start adding fruits or berries to enhance the wine I'm making. The Merlot I added a berry blend of raspberries, blackberries and blueberries, with some dried cranberries. The Chardonnay I added green apples and pears. I tasted the Chardonnay today and I'm very impressed, still dry with the hints of the pear and apple, I haven't tried the Merlot yet, waiting a few more days. I'm just hoping with this thread that people share what they add to their wines, as when I start my next batch which will probably be a Shiraz it would be nice to know what to add from other people's experiences.

 

[salcoco]

be careful that the fruit sugars may start fermentation again. stabilize with sorbate when adding the fruit.
peaches would be good with Chardonnay.
Review the Island Mist series of wine kits and you will see fruit wine combinations that you can try at home.

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

Elderberries can add some nice flavors to kits.

 

[TCPT18]

Black pepper crushed to the Shiraz gives a great spice note

 

[jgnin]

Gonna start a Shiraz after Xmas, I'll keep that in mind! How much you put in? When do you add it?

 

[Mismost]

Elderberries can add some nice flavors to kits.

elderberries in a Malbec...awesome.

Grapefruit zest in a Chardonnay was told 1/2 zest of a grapefruit...so I added the zestg of a whole grapefruit....1/2 would have been perfect...zest is powerful stuff

blueberry in a Merlot

 

[jburtner]

Zest is wonderfully powerful. I tried adding zest from about 80 lemons to 1.5L of Vodka and letting it sit for a year

My gf wants me to add some grapefruit zest to a sauvingon blanc kit i've got on the shelf but i'm going to test it out first since SB's can be pretty zesty already too. Maybe start with 1/4 on that one and see.

Otherwise I have added golden raisins to a chardonnay and regular raisins and currants to an amarone. Tart dried cherries and fresh blackberries to the super tuscan.

I try to add something to each one.

Cheers!
-jb

 

[PhilDarby]

raspberry or blue berry in small amounts can improve flavours, as a subtle flavour, and as ive just discovered so can a few halves of pistachio nut shells, per gallon, which seem to add a slight sweetness, which persists, also, a few tiny pieces of red or green peppers, slivers only, per gallon, for certain kinds of wines (use with caution, the peppers, as the flavour persists) also, slivers of cork, if you have no barrel, dry powdery cork adds more flavours, although I don't really do kits these are tweaks I tend to use regularly, to basic wines I make.

raspberry seeds add a lot of tannins or so it seems, if you leave them in the wine, without filtering, basically I tend to have some fermented to blend if I need to add tannins to a new wine, filter through a sieve only, to retain the tiny pips, use this to add tannin to wine lacking tannins, once matured.

check this thread out for tweaking, red wines :-

http://winefolly.com/tutorial/red-dark-fruit-flavors-in-wine/

its a very good guide into adding tweaks to simulate a particular flavour, I use it regularly to tweak and blend my own red wines.