First tastings of a cranberry wine

[Adam Preble]

After Thanksgiving, I took advantage of the sale on cranberries by
making cranberry wine. At Jack Keller's suggestion, I used the highbush
recipe on his site:

http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/highbush.asp

I've finally bottled it. Some I bottled with priming sugar to make
sparkling wine. The rest is just a red wine. I bottled 4 days ago and
have tasted it. It's kind of harsh, but I don't think it's bad. I'm
wondering how long I might have to wait on it.

Instead of using golden raisins/sultanas, I used Californian raisins. I
only now discovered that mistake. This may explain the darker color
of the wine. I manually pressed the berries/raisins after an initial
fermentation using just my hands. Well, they were sanitized and all; I
remember not being able to scratch some itches while I was doing that.
I don't think I got an infection in the wine, but I may have over pressed.

The flavor is kind of bitter. The bitterness isn't in the initial
taste. The impression I get from the first sip is church wine. Kind of
diluted, but very warming. The wine does warm up my chest. My
girlfriend thought I reeked of booze after a glass of this wine. I
don't have the OG, so I don't know the conversion. The FG was 1.002 at
55 degrees Fahrenheit. I'm thinking there might be some fusel in the
wine since it was fermenting at around 72 degrees ambient temperature.

It seems to me that the wine needs about half a year in bottles before
it'll taste sane. I'm wondering about the bitterness and the general
booziness. I've only made one other red wine before--from a kit. It
had intially a rubbery taste leftover from yeast, and that aged out quickly.

[Dar V]

Hello,
I've made cranberry wine and it usually is very good at a year. Most wines
will benefit from a bit of aging, it will smooth out the alcoholic kick
taste, and the harshness of the cranberry. I sweeten a bit which helps with
the harshness sometimes. How old was it when you bottled it?
Darlene

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[Brad]

I make cranberry wine from the frozen concentrates I pick up at walmart. I'm
carefull that I get concentrates that do not contain preservatives as this
will of course inhibit or prevent the fermentation. I do find that I have
trouble gettting the wine to ferment out all of the sugar. 1.090 to start.
All of that being said... It makes an awesome wine. One of my favorites.
I've yet to have a single person that tasted some not aske me for a bottle
and / or offer to buy the supplies to make more.

I've never tried it from the fruit berrys.

Brad

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[Murray Clark]

>
> Instead of using golden raisins/sultanas, I used Californian raisins.
> I only now discovered that mistake. This may explain the darker
> color of the wine.

I think raisins have too much influence in the taste of wine. My high-
bush cranberry wine is done without it. I recommend if you make
strawberry wine do it without the raisins. You need to do a little extra
aging but the time is well worth it.

[Ray Calvert]

I made that recipe about 3 years ago. It was harsh after one year but not
too bad. After 2 years it was much better. After 3 it has not changed much
beyond 2. I like it blended with a white wine (50:50) but most women that
have tried it like it as it is.

Ray

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