Its been a while since I made a wine making post, it seems appropriate to have a wine after my whine the other day LOL. So what have we got. Well, making 2 batches. First one is Shiraz. Now, i do not typically make wine using concentrates, or grapes for that matter, but now that we have a small vineyard and some wine grapes planted, i figured that I really should have a go at making some grape wine so i have the process down for when we have our own grapes ready. 
So while I was looking online for some new yeast and other additives, I found a place that sells 1L bottles of concentrate. Price was ok, so i am giving it a go. I do not intend to make a full bodied red from this, but will end up with something semi sweet more like a lumbruscco. While i like dry reds, the wife not so much, so i tend to make our wines sweeter than i would prefer.
Concentrate into a demijohn and 3 liters of water, pitch the yeast and let her rip. The reason why only 4 liters to begin with is so it does not foam over and blow out the air lock and make a mess. In a few days I will add the final liter of water and leave it to fully ferment.
Next up is Mulberry wine. This is a staple in this house and something we both like to drink. Trying something a little different this time, I am using 1 liter of white wine concentrate. The point of this is to improve the mouth feel and over all flavor profile. It also adds the fermentable sugars we need to bring this up to about 14%.
The basic recipe here is:
- 6Kg of mulberries.
- 1L white wine concentrate.
- 9L of water.
- 1Kg of sugar.
- red wine yeast.
- pectinaise.
- yeast nutrient.
- grape tanin.
- Sg is 0.70 but that is without the sugars in the fruit adding to that. Should be 0.8 to 0.90 or there about.
I will leave it on the fruit for 3 days, then rack to demijohns to ferment to completion. And that is how I spent my day today. I will update this post when I rack and add some notes about taste. It will be 12 months before its ready to drink, but its been good to make some wine again. Its been a while.
