Racked my crab apple, blueberry, and apricot off their secondary
sediments for some quiet time before racking/clarifying later this
winter.

Blueberry is thin and very tart but hopeful (bouquet and taste-wise).
TA: 6.5

Crab apple / apple tastes like nothing and looks like contaminated
water in a wine glass. TA: 7.5

Apricot tastes nothing at all like apricots. TA: 5.5

All are 60 days old. My first attempt at country wines. Grape wines
are truly heavenly (relatively) at this stage.

Is there any hope or am I just getting really good at washing bottles?

Two months old is very young yet. While I have not made those particular
fruit wines, your observations don't really surprise me. FYI - all I make
is fruit wines, and I really have not been at this long - ending my third
year. But I have noticed that fruit wines change alot from beginning to the
end, and they don't necessarily taste like you think they would or look like
you think they should.

For example, my pumpkin wine tasted like rocket fuel when it was young, but
at 7 months old (when I bottled it) it was a very smooth, white wine (almost
like a German Riesling wine). I have big hopes for the wine as it is
supposed to get better at 2 years old. My watermelon wine smells like
watermelon, but it doesn't have a watermelon taste. My strawberry wine
smells like strawberries and has a very pretty red color, but it tastes like
a light red wine with a hint of fruitiness. You'd think my green pepper
wine might be a bit green, but is came out as an off-white wine.

I'd hang in there, keep tasting as you go - so you know how they change as
they age, and if you try them again, look for some ideas on how to
change/add to your recipe so you can get a wine you'll like.
Darlene

"glad heart" > wrote in message
om...
> Racked my crab apple, blueberry, and apricot off their secondary
> sediments for some quiet time before racking/clarifying later this
> winter.
>
> Blueberry is thin and very tart but hopeful (bouquet and taste-wise).
> TA: 6.5
>
> Crab apple / apple tastes like nothing and looks like contaminated
> water in a wine glass. TA: 7.5
>
> Apricot tastes nothing at all like apricots. TA: 5.5
>
> All are 60 days old. My first attempt at country wines. Grape wines
> are truly heavenly (relatively) at this stage.
>
> Is there any hope or am I just getting really good at washing bottles?

Thanks very much for your encouraging comments Darlene. I'll hang in
there. Us winemakers are often flying solo. This forum is great for
drawing together a community of experience (gettin' too old to have to
learn everything the hard way). ;-)

I know what you mean. Between the wine books I have, Jack & Lum's wine
sites, and this forum, I feel pretty good about making wine and dealing with
those questions which ultimately come up. There's always a batch which
teaches me something. I'm looking forward to the next couple of months, I'm
going to be opening some of my wines which I have not sampled since they
were bottled (at 7 months) - dandelion (1 1/2 yrs old now), raspberry (1 1/2
yrs old now), cranberry (11 months), and strawberry (11 months). Most of
these wines were the first batch I ever made and I've tried to be really
patient about letting them age. After tasting, I may alter my recipes for
the next time I make them-you know add more body, sweeten, whatever etc.
Darlene

"glad heart" > wrote in message
om...
> Thanks very much for your encouraging comments Darlene. I'll hang in
> there. Us winemakers are often flying solo. This forum is great for
> drawing together a community of experience (gettin' too old to have to
> learn everything the hard way). ;-)

I assume you have made these dry. If you expected a dry wine that tastes of
apples, you will be disappointed. Typically a dry apple wine tastes like a
nondescript white table wine and it will taste strongly of rough alcohol
when young. At a year and a half the character will improve markedly but it
still will not taste like apples. BUT if you add a bit of sugar to it the
apples will leap out at you. The same is probably true of the other wines
you made.

Give them time to clear so they are NOT contaminated water, give them time
to age so their character mellows, and, if you want them to taste like the
fruit they were made from, give them some sugar (1-2%). I think you will
enjoy them in the end.

Ray

"glad heart" > wrote in message
om...
> Racked my crab apple, blueberry, and apricot off their secondary
> sediments for some quiet time before racking/clarifying later this
> winter.
>
> Blueberry is thin and very tart but hopeful (bouquet and taste-wise).
> TA: 6.5
>
> Crab apple / apple tastes like nothing and looks like contaminated
> water in a wine glass. TA: 7.5
>
> Apricot tastes nothing at all like apricots. TA: 5.5
>
> All are 60 days old. My first attempt at country wines. Grape wines
> are truly heavenly (relatively) at this stage.
>
> Is there any hope or am I just getting really good at washing bottles?

glad heart > wrote in message
om...
> Racked my crab apple, blueberry, and apricot off their secondary
> sediments for some quiet time before racking/clarifying later this
> winter.
>
> Blueberry is thin and very tart but hopeful (bouquet and taste-wise).
> TA: 6.5
>
> Crab apple / apple tastes like nothing and looks like contaminated
> water in a wine glass. TA: 7.5
>
> Apricot tastes nothing at all like apricots. TA: 5.5
>
> All are 60 days old. My first attempt at country wines. Grape wines
> are truly heavenly (relatively) at this stage.
>
> Is there any hope or am I just getting really good at washing bottles?

In my (very limited) experience - I only started making country wines this
year - they keep on changing in flavour! I had what I thought was going to
be a revolting rosehip - tasted of nothing very much except bitterness at
first racking, but a couple of weeks later and wow! - it's now like a full
bodied dry white - and it's still very young of course. I'm hoping the same
will happen to the still very bitter rowanberry, but I'm not convinced!

Just keep persevering - that's what I'm doing - every time I taste one of
the wines (and I currently have 22 different ones on the go - caught the bug
in a bad way!) it's changed. I'm planning to keep them for at least a year
before making up my mind - and I'll be happy if half of them turn out to be
worth the effort. The process of discovery is, for me, half the thrill -
after all, it's much easier to pop out to the shops and buy a bottle of
wine!

The only wine I've made which tasted remotely like the fruit it was made
from was a black cherry kit wine - and unfortunately I discovered that I'm
not that keen on black cherries in wine form!

Anyway, good luck with yours, and let us know how they progress!

Jo


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