A friend asked me how to turn wine into brandy. He was thinking
of using Carlo Rossi.

Which types of wines are appropriate for converting into brandy?

Is there any legal (in the U.S. to do such a conversion?

Dick

Dick Adams wrote:
A friend asked me how to turn wine into brandy. He was thinking
of using Carlo Rossi.

Which types of wines are appropriate for converting into brandy?

Is there any legal (in the U.S. to do such a conversion?

Dick

Any wine can be made into brandy. In fact the quyality of the wine and
the quality of the brandy are not related. Grappa for instance is made
from pomace.

Unfortunately there is no legal way to make brandy in the US without
expensive permits.

Droopy wrote:
Dick Adams wrote:

A friend asked me how to turn wine into brandy. He was thinking
of using Carlo Rossi.

Which types of wines are appropriate for converting into brandy?

Is there any legal (in the U.S. to do such a conversion?

Any wine can be made into brandy. In fact the quality of the wine
and the quality of the brandy are not related. Grappa for instance
is made from pomace.

What are the determining factors for the quality of the resultant
brandy?

Do you have any idea of the expected efficiency conversion factor?

Are there specific styles of wine that are better for making brandy?

Unfortunately there is no legal way to make brandy in the US
without expensive permits.

Damn, that means I can't do it. My friend is a Canadian working
on a contract here for another six months - then back to British
Columbia. Maybe he can do it there.

Dick

Distilling is as illegal in Canada as it is in the United States.

wd41

"Dick Adams" wrote in message
...
Unfortunately there is no legal way to make brandy in the US
without expensive permits.

Damn, that means I can't do it. My friend is a Canadian working
on a contract here for another six months - then back to British
Columbia. Maybe he can do it there.

Now, if he moved to New Zealand...

It's all about the missed tax revenue here.

Steve

Dick Adams wrote:
What are the determining factors for the quality of the resultant
brandy?

Do you have any idea of the expected efficiency conversion factor?

Are there specific styles of wine that are better for making brandy?

Well with brandy, you will distill out the acids and more volitile
compounds like methanol and ethyl acetate (that is why you can make it
from pomace, something that when fermented would leave a lot of
methanol, treating vegetable material with pectinase releases
methanol).

So really wines that are not of good of a quality can make fine
brandies, wines with either very low acidity that would not age well
are traditionally distilled into brandy, and wines that have
excessively high acidity can also be made into brandy.

What you do want is a very defined fusel alcohol character. Because
brandy is usually distilled once, a lot of the fusel character will
remain in the spirit. Now the exact fusel character that is needed is
really only known to a master distiller. What I do know is the wine
quality does not necessarily mean high quality brandy (and vice versa).