Fruit wines are fermented alcoholic beverages made from a variety of ingredients – aside from grapes, and known for having a variety of flavors. Fruit wines are usually referred to by their main ingredient fruit. Fruit wines can include wines produced from fruits like apples and elderberries.
Fruit wines have traditionally been popular with home wine makers and in areas with cool climates such as North America and Scandinavia. Many fruit wines suffer however from a lack of natural yeast nutrients needed to promote or maintain fermentation. Fruit wine makers can counter this with the addition of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium available commercially as yeast nutrient. Like many conventional white wines, fruit wines often do not improve with bottle age and are usually meant to be consumed within a year of bottling.
The fermentation of fruit wines at home was particularly fashionable in the UK in the 1970s and was popularized in the BBC TV series The Good Life. Practically every country of the world, and every state in the US, has at least one winery creating fruit wines.
How are Fruit Wines Made?
The wine makers of fruit wines use many of the same techniques used on grape wines. At some fruit wineries, a machine first gets rid of the stalks and washes off bugs. Next, some fruit wineries use a crusher of some sort – either spinning or ballooning to separate the juice from the skins (peels, etc.) The liquid is then put into a fermentation vat, and yeast is sometimes added. The wine then goes through normal fermentation processes. The wineries that allow fermentation to begin with the skin remove the pulp at some stage and finish fermentation on just the liquid.
A Little Bit of Fruit Wine History
Fruit wines have a long and respected history. Plum wine, one example of fruit wine, has been made in China and Japan for centuries. The people of Ireland are also wine makers of fruit wines. Making wines – plum fruit wines is a typical past time for them.
Examples of Fruit Wines
Plum Fruit Wine
Ume liquor, also known as “plum wine”, is a popular fruit wine in both Japan and Korea, and is also produced in China. The taste of this fruit wine can be described as sweet and smooth.
Pineapple fruit wine
Pineapple wine made from the juice of pineapple is also a type of fruit wine. The pineapple fruit wine is made in Hawaii by the Tedeschi Wine Vineyards called ‘Maui Blanc’ located in Ulupalakua, Maui-Hawaii, on the slopes of Haleakala. Several varieties of pineapple fruit wine are also made in Okinawa Japan from locally produced pineapples. Its alcohol content is 11.5% by volume.
Rose Hip Fruit Wine
Rose hip wine is a fruit wine than can be made from fresh or dried rose hip fruits. The most suitable type of fruit wine produced from rose hip fruits is strong and sweet, with two years storage at least.
Redcurrant/ Whitecurrant Fruit Wine
Redcurrant/ Whitecurrant fruit wine is a high quality wine usually produced in Northern cool areas where vineyards have difficulties with growing high quality grapes. Redcurrants and whitecurrants give high quality fruit wines which is one of the reasons that they are one of the most popular fruit wines produced by home wine makers. Another reason why fruit wines are favored by home wine makers: Fruit wines have a simple way of being produced.
Lappish Hag’s Love Potion Fruit Wine
Lappish Hag’s Love Potion is a traditional homebrewed Finnish fruit wine made from blueberries which ferment naturally with wild yeast present on the skin. Lappish Hag’s Love Potion fruit wine is made by filling wine bottles with tightly interspersed un-crushed blueberries and sugar to near filling point, and then topping up with water, little by little. The wine bottles are then left to ferment in the sunlight for about a month.
Next time you’re out wine shopping, consider buying fruit wines. You can buy wine on line as there are now so many on line wine stores or you if you prefer, you can do your wine shopping by physically going to wine store merchants.
