Can wine be made from fruits other than grapes?

8 responses so far ↓

• 1 ik // Aug 6, 2008

  Fruit wines, derived from fruits other than grapes, include cider, made from apples; perry, produced from pears; plum wine and cherry wine; and wines made from various berries.

• 2 M ♥ C // Aug 6, 2008

  Many winemakers are experimenting with making wine out of fruits and berries other than grapes. Home vintners have long experimented with various fruits with traditional local fruits.
  Cherry wine especially has evoked songs of love and loss and is featured as the title of Carol Schmidt's mystery Sweet Cherry Wine. Just as grape varietals have their own character, fruit wines can be exotic, flavorful, and exciting to drink. Blackberries, elderberries, loganberries, blackcurrants, blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, and strawberries have all been used successfully to make red red.

  Those berries with a deeper, less sweet taste can create red wines satisfying to traditional wine drinkers. Blackberry wine can taste similar to a red Bordeaux if properly aged. Elderberries grown outside the coastal areas of North America make a nice aromatic red wine. Dried elderberries or elderberry juice are generally available from winemaking stores. Elderberries also make an excellent addition to red wines make from grapes as that supply tannin that many concentrates lack.
  Delicious desert wines can be made from loganberries and blackcurrants. Blackcurrant wines has an aroma similar to Cabernet Sauvignon. Cranberries, raspberries, and strawberries all have delicate flavors that can make nice dessert wines. The key is not to over sweeten and serve ice cold. It really is impossible to make a dry strawberry wine.

  Many beginning home winemakers will begin with fruit readily available in their local areas. Becareful, not all fruit makes good wine. Other fruits, such as apricots, are better used to create liqueurs. Plums tend to take on an odd, tangy taste during fermentation when used in wine making. Plums do make decent sherries and ports. Plums ferment well creating high-alcohol yeast strains that make fortified wines.

  With a little creativity good wines can be made from fruits other than grapes.

• 3 william a // Aug 6, 2008

  Ask at your local library about books on folk wines or try a search on the computer.

• 4 mariner31 // Aug 6, 2008

  Yes, my Grandmother used to make a nice Choke-Cherry wine. Unlike some grape-based wines, fruit wines often do not improve with bottle age and are usually meant to be consumed within a year of bottling. However, non-grape wines will age properly when the appropriate microbiological cultures are used in the fermentation of the wine, and the aging process is not interrupted through the addition of sulfur dioxide. It is always advisable to use selected yeast cultures, instead of uncontrolled fermentation initiated by "wild yeast" and other microbes that are present on the skin of fruits

  Here are a few quick links:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_wine
  http://www.winesparkle.com/fruitwines.html

• 5 Titania R // Aug 6, 2008

  In the maritimes they make delicious blueberry and strawberry wine, too. No idea at all about the process…

• 6 Rhiannon!! // Aug 6, 2008

  Yes.

  Wine can be produced from numerous berries as well as just grapes.

• 7 reelcar // Aug 6, 2008

  i've heard of dandelion wine and onion wine. i think you can make it out of mostly anything

• 8 psycle // Aug 6, 2008

  While it is traditional that wine is made from grapes. Many other fruits are used in many varieties of wine.

  Mead, wine made from honey, has actually been in existence longer than wine made from grapes. Fruit and various spices are often added to mead to produce different flavors. Cyser, a semi-common mead, uses apples.