Sources of Fruit for Wine

Of course, the ultimate fruit for wine would be fresh fruit that is crushed and/or pressed for the juice, and then fermented. No water added. But what to do in the middle of winter?

Well, there are a couple of inferior but cheaper and accessible sources. The first one is to use frozen fruit. This could be thawed out and pressed for juice, or it could be allowed to soak in water.

Another option is to use canned fruits. I recently bought some canned Bartlett pears, and I plan on using the syrup and pears both when I make them. However, canned fruit often contains some form of sugar, so read the labels to make sure you are comfortable with the variety in the product. While I do not particularly care for corn syrup, my husband is now buying a powdered form of corn sugar to use with his beer because it does better than cane sugar.

Probably the most easy source for making fruit wine is buying fruit juice. While more expensive, using juices that are 100% juice usually tastes a little better than concentrated juice. Also, 100% is usually pasteurized, so aside from sterilizing equipment, the juice itself does not need to have potassium metasulfite added. However, when on a budget, concentrated juice works well. My first batch of apple wine used concentrated apple juice.

Remember, if you are buying any processed fruit or fruit juice, check the labels to ensure that no preservatives have been added.

There are also a few choices from your local brew supply store, including canned fruit, pureed fruit, or even kits that have all the ingredients needed in a box. These can be spendy, but at the same time it will be higher quality and preservative free. This stuff is made for making wine.

Read the Labels

I was poking though my freezer a few months ago and discovered several packages of peaches my mother has bought, cut up, and froze for me. I got out my copy of The Joy of Home Winemaking by Terry A Garey and looked up how to make a peach wine. Well, things didn’t go so well.

First off, I needed to put the peaches in a mesh bag, and put that in a primary fermenter and let them sit for a week with yeast. I didn’t have a primary fermenter, let alone a small one, so I used two juice pitchers and plugged the spouts with cotton balls to mimic something like an airlock, as sometimes the books say to use a cotton-wool bung. I have asked my local supply store for a cotton-wool bung, but sometimes we just don’t see eye to eye, and this is one of them. They didn’t have any.

Originally, I made up a batch and realized I over sugared it, but then I realized it wouldn’t fit into one pitcher, so I split it into two pitchers, added more water and peaches, and figured out the potential alcohol of each. Then I took the pH of both pitchers. My first batch of apple wine called for the juice of two lemons or some concentrate lemonade to lower the pH. This time, I went with lemonade, and got my pH to the desired level.

At the end of a week, I was suppose to remove the peaches and put the remaining liquid into a glass jug and fit it with an airlock. I went to test the potential alcohol at this time to make sure things were progressing as they should. I got the exact same number as when I started, which meant that the yeast did nothing for an entire week. Something was very wrong.

My hypothesis is that the lemonade I added to lower the pH contained some sort of preservative, which killed the yeast, and no amount of fussing with it would make it alive to start fermenting. When I bought the lemonade, I checked the ingredients on the label, but I’m not completely convinced there wasn’t any preservatives present. Since then, I have bought a powdered acid blend to lower the pH from my supply store, and any time I buy juice or processed fruit, I make sure it specifically says no preservatives.