Wine can be made from almost any fruit or vegetable, but grapes are the most popular and the most commonly used. It is a rare wine maker that uses fresh grapes for wine making. Preparation time and fermenting time is considerably longer with fresh grapes than wine that starts with grape concentrate. The concentrate can be purchased from wine and beer making stores or online. There is even are easy recipes that use frozen juice concentrate.
Do some wine testing to find out what kind of wine you like before purchasing wine making grapes. Chances are if you like a type of wine that is professionally made, you will like the same type of wine when you make it yourself. It is fun to experiment, but it can be frustrating to spend the time on a batch of wine, wait for the fermentation process to finish, just to end up with bottles of wine that you cannot enjoy.
RED WINE-the color contributes to taste. Red wine uses the flesh pulp and the skins of grapes. The color comes from the grape skin. These are some grapes and their characteristics that are used in producing red wine:
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Barbera-plummy and cherryish
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Cabernet Franc-grassy and rasberryish
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Cabernet Sauvignon-cedar, vanilla and coffee
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Gamy-cherry and strawberry flavors
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Grenache-thyme and rosemary scents
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Merlot-chocolate and spice-like characters
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Sangiovese-herby and savory
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Pinotage-plummy and blackberryish
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Zinfandal-headily spicy
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Pinot noir-cola spice, incense and game
WHITE WINE-the taste is different than red wine because the skin is not in contact with the juice. This also minimizes the tannin in the wine. These are some grapes and their characteristics that are used in producing red wine:
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Chardonnay-buttery and nutty
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Chenin Blanc-sweet barley sugar and honey characters
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Muscat-exotically fragrant
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Pinot blanc-grapey and smoky
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Riesling-apples and lime
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Sauvinon blanc-aromas of elderflower and blackcurrant leaf
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Semillon-lusciously sweet and marmaladey
Grapes are the main ingredients to the wine so choosing wine making grapes is very important. Take your time choosing which grapes you will use, so that you can make a wine that you will enjoy drinking.