One of the things that makes wine making so much fun is that you have an opportunity to get creative. Here’s a little tip on how to make white wine with a touch of your own personal flair.
Blending certain fruits with a white grape wine can make a spectacular summertime refresher. One of my favorites is peach or apricot mixed with a Riesling grape wine. The additional fruitiness opens up both the wine’s flavor and bouquet profile.
You could make your own by getting some Riesling grape concentrate or a wine ingredient kit and adding some fresh peaches or apricots to the mix while it’s fermenting. But a better, more-controlled way of adding a fruit to a grape wine is to make the fruit into a wine of it’s own and then blend it to taste with the grape wine right before bottling.
For example, you could make an apricot wine and bottle each gallon in a gallon glass carboy. Then when a you make a grape wine (in this case Riesling) you can just take a gallon glass carboy of apricot and blend to taste with the Riesling wine at bottling time.
You may or may not need the whole gallon, or you may need to open a second gallon jug of apricot. The point being is you have complete control over how the wine is going to taste in terms of a grape-apricot blend.
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.
