On Nov 3, 3:27*pm, "Bob Becker" > wrote:
> Last spring or early summer I bought 20-25 pounds of *really ripe* pears.
> I squished them up and followed a recipe for pear wine.
> I followed the steps and racked it into a carboy.
> This stuff has been sitting in the carboy for several months now,
> and *it's really terrible. *It has a kind of a bitter/sour taste, certainly
> nobody would enjoy drinking it.
>
> So... *do I toss it out, or are there any ideas out there about how
> I may rescue it. *The good news is that I don't have a lot of money
> invested in it - I got the pears for $3.00.
>
> Thanks for any ideas.
>
> BB

Bob,

You have said that your wine tastes bitter/sour. Have you tested the
TA?

Sometimes with fruit wines, an acidity which is too LOW can make the
other flavors, especially the tannic and bitter flavors, seem more
pronounced. This seems likely since you were working with very ripe
pears.

If you have the means of testing the TA, I would do so first. If not,
try bench trials with adding acid in a couple of different proportions
to a small amount of the wine.

I've made pear wine that turned out great, so don't give up. I also
routinely make a banana wine for blending (sounds weird, I know) using
overripe bananas which I freeze a few at the time as they become too
ripe to eat.

My banana wine, which sounds like it might have a lot of the same
fruit characteristics of your pear wine, ALWAYS requires the addition
of a decent amount of acid blend.

Hope this helps.

Leigh