The recipe book we started with was trying to make a fruit wine that tasted like a grape wine - light on the fruit flavor. We bumped up the amount of fruit used & got a true flavor. Of course, it depended on whether the fruit had a good flavor. One year the apples were rather blah, so I finished by adding Allspice to the carboy for a few months. That had a very light apple flavor & a nice spice. Most of our Melrose is really strongly apple-tasting.
We also do blackberry, among others. We have a big blackberry bramble on our property & we pick about 40 lbs a year, all going into wine. That usually makes a starting volume of 12 gallons. On cooler years (like this one has been) the berry flavor isn’t as good. But we’ve had a batch or two that were shear heaven! :-)
yep, you will never be able to buy a commercial blackberry wine that is anywhere near as good as what a half ways experienced home winemaker can produce from the blackberries in his backyard. Many of these so called wine connoisseurs have no idea how good wine can really be when it’s made by hand and in small batches by a craftsman who is dedicated to producing quality over quantity. Now, for my apple wine, I just use the cider that’s available from area orchards. It’s typically $4-5/gallon typically-probably more this year though. these folks take a lot of pride in their apple cider and it really shines when you ferment it. I know it’s controversial but I sugar that stuff up to a potential alcohol of about 13% to 14% and then ferment it with Lalvin EC1118 until it’s dry as a bone. I’ll add an acid blend and some tannin and yeast nutrient too. with my next batch I’m going to introduce a secondary bottle fermentation inside champagne bottles and then use the methode traditionelle to produce apple champagne. Should be interesting.