Stephen, I can't add much to what has already been said except to add
that good fruit wines are made with good fruit. With few exceptions,
most fruit peak in flavor when the fruit are at the peak of ripeness.
Harvesting your own is the way to go because if you pick any
under-ripe fruit you can only blame yourself. Commercial (super
market) fruit are notoriously under-ripe when harvested because their
cycle is timed to allow the fruit to "turn" during transit and on the
shelf. The proof of this is to taste a deep red strawberry purchased
at the supermarket and then taste a vine-ripened strawberry from your
garden. You wouldn't even know they are the same species!
But you need to be clear about one thing. Fruit wines do not taste
like the fruit they are made from any more than grape wine tastes like
the grapes they are made from. But if they are made well, from fruit
at the peak of their ripeness, they will taste like wine from that
fruit is supposed to taste. You will know what it is because your
nose and palate will recognize the fruit character in the base.
By "made well" I mean they are balanced. Alcohol is a major component
of balance (the other major components being sugar, tannin and
acidity--both TA and pH). If the alcohol is too high for the fruit
type, you will never achieve balance without major intervention.
Newbies make high alcohol wine because they don't understand balance.
Some of the best fruit wines I have ever enjoyed (and I sure didn't
make them all) were 10.5 to 11.5% abv. I even had an outstanding kiwi
wine that was only 9.25% abv. It had an s.g. of 1.002, but it tasted
like it was 1.006 at least because the alcohol did not compete with
it. The kiwi flavor jumped out at you because it was a very
well-balanced wine--TA was around 5.5 g/L and pH a bit high at 3.6 to
3.7 (two measurements--same meter--gave two readings). She (the
winemaker) had fermenting on the skins and then added just a smidgen
of tannin from tea leaves.
I hope this and the other posts help.
Jack Keller, The Winemaking Home Page
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/