Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
So let's look at the first critical decisions involved in making
a wine recipe.
• Dominant and any secondary or tertiary fruits or flavors.
This decision is purely aesthetic, and if you are someone with
chronically bad taste you might consider consulting a friend
or loved one for guidance. For example, I might want to make
a wine with apple dominant, mulling spice secondary and
honey tertiary. It would be rather daring as there would be
little residual sweetness to balance the spice, so instead I'll
make the apple dominant, honey secondary and mulling spice
tertiary. Another example would be a wine with sweet cherry
dominant and concord grape secondary.
• Check the tannin levels of each fruit. Any fruit that is high
in tannin cannot be more than half of your must. If you want
the fruit to be dominant anyway, you'll have to choose
something unassertive such as generic white grape juice as a
secondary. For example, if I want to make a wine with
blueberry dominant, because blueberry is highly tannic, I am
limited to four pounds of blueberries per gallon and will need
to use adjuncts that won't overshadow the blueberry, such as
white grape juice to make up the difference in volume.
• Check the acid levels of each fruit. Though the tables I've
included are not a substitute for actual measurement, you can
use them to get an idea that lemons are too acidic to constitute
a major proportion of a wine must and that watermelon would
need acid added. If the level of acid in the fruit is greater than
9g/L, then the quantity of that fruit should be limited to avoid
excess acidity.
