Everything you need to know about the process, the history, and the benefits
Watermelon wine is made by cooking down the ripe, juicy fruit, then fermenting and racking down the juice. This is a wonderful food-friendly wine, where balancing the considerable sweetness of watermelon with its acidic content is key to achieving a drinkable quality.
One of the most intriguing of the sweet and sour wines, raspberry wine is a refreshing and delicate summertime treat. The berries readily lend themselves to winemaking, and easily give up their flavor, juices, and color.
Homemade plum wine is often confused with the rather sweet and sour Japanese liquor (pictured) that's infused with plums rather than that made with fruit fermented into alcohol. Plum wine proper is an earthy and full-bodied drink, rich and smooth on the palate, and a perfect after-dinner digestif.
Experienced fruit winemakers know that some strawberry wine recipes don't require any added yeast. Instead, the process relies on natural fermentation from the wild yeast already present on the fruit. Remember to thoroughly mash the strawberries by hand.
Highly regarded as a dessert wine, rhubarb wine at its best is sweet, crisp, and carries the full-bodied taste of the fruit in every sip. And if you really do like your wines sweet, add honey to sweeten the mix.
We all know that grapes are used to make wine. But did you know that most fruits and berries have the potential to produce wine? And if you fancy having a go at making your own wine at home, there are dozens of different fruits you can use to create an array of drinks worth raising your glass to.
Click through the following gallery and enjoy making and drinking any of these delightful fruit wines.
This deliciously fragrant wine delights with its pastel yellow-rose tint, light pleasant flavor, and notes of almond. Be sure to pick fruit that's not tainted or molded, and make sure the peach is thoroughly pulped.
Homemade pineapple wine is a refreshing low-alcohol dessert drink made from the juice of the fruit. Golden yellow in color and exuding a rich, dry, natural flavor with a smoky nose, the wine is hugely popular throughout the tropics.
Muscadine (not to be confused with Muscat or Muscato) is a grape variety native to the southern United States. Muscadine grapes are used to produce medium-bodied red and white wines with relatively high acidity and low alcohol levels.
Gooseberries make a wonderfully light and medium dry wine. Try to use small, green gooseberries from early in the season. If you use later ones, then increase the sugar content and turn it into a slightly heavier, sweeter wine.
Mulberries make a poor wine by themselves and need to be fortified with grape juice or raisins to increase the body. You have to prepare the berries by busting their skins—best accomplished by putting them in a fermentation bag and gently squeezing it.
The trick here is to grate the rind from grapefruits, peel the pith from all of the fruit, and separate segments. The fruit and grated rind produces a dry table wine that's tart and tangy but still delightfully semi-sweet.
Huckleberry wine has a deep fruity flavor, a result of blending sweet and tart berries to bring out its unique fresh berry aroma. Picking out only those berries that are sound and ripe is vital in obtaining the exceptional bouquet huckleberry wine is famous for.
The large red domesticated persimmon makes the best wine, a delicate amber-colored beverage that is very popular in the Far East. Just make sure not to use any unripened fruit, as this will result in a harsh-tasting wine.
Many connoisseurs consider this the best fruit wine. Ripe blackcurrants produce a medium-sweet, rich, and complex-flavored beverage that leaves a pleasant aftertaste that is fresh and sharply cleansing.
A lovely wintertime tipple, ginger wine is a fortified wine made from a fermented blend of ground ginger root and raisins. Rich golden brown in color with a powerful pungent aroma, ginger wine packs a considerable alcoholic punch.
Making wine with cranberries can be challenging given the fruit's naturally high acidity. The trick is in the preparation. Chop cranberries coarsely to break the skin on every berry. This will encourage the juice to leak and flow during fermentation.
Blackberries are perfect for winemaking, and they produce one of the great foraged wines. They grow free in abundance, and are bursting with flavorful juice and sugar. Ideally, blackberry wine should be made using a blend of sweet and tart berries.
Blueberries are well suited to making wine. A useful tip is to freeze the berries a day or two before using them. This helps to break open their cells and release their bright, fruity juice.
Use ripe black chokeberries that are in perfect condition. Unripe, spoiled, or moldy berries should be expelled right from the get-go. This isn't the strongest-flavored berry on the block and if used to make wine it's often blended with cranberry or blackberry for a bigger kick.
Use unspoiled, ripe apricots plucked from a tree. Fruit picked from the ground can add an unpleasant earthy taste to the beverage. The key is finding the sweetest, juiciest apricots you can get your hands on.
Homemade banana wine is a fragrant drink. Its honey-colored tint and light tropical fruit flavor lends it a unique quality. Bananas used for making wine should be ripe–really ripe! In fact, practically brown.
See also: The health benefits of tropical fruits.
Producing a good, deliciously dark elderberry wine is an exact science. Use too few berries and the wine will end up too thin and unlikely to improve. Conversely, when too many berries are used, the tannins and other flavor constituents may overpower the palate and require dilution.
The debate surrounding the difference between apple wine and apple cider continues. Apple cider is made by crushing apples and fermenting the juice. Making apple wine is essentially the same process, but requires more sugar. The best apple varieties for making wine include Honeycrisp, Empire, and Granny Smith.
This one is fun to make, and worth every sip. Cherries make a wonderful fruit wine, a beverage celebrated for its great depth of flavor. For the best result, use a blend of tart and sweet cherries.
Common wild grapes have been harvested since the Neolithic period. They shouldn't be confused with grapes cultivated in commercial vineyards. Wild grape wine requires only the very ripest of grapes. Note that green grapes will cause the wine to be very sour.
Renowned for its honey-like sweetness and smooth, dry finish, fig wine is often made using dried figs; a pure, fresh fig wine is a tad more complicated to produce. Try and use the smaller variety of fig, which is more flavor-packed. This, of course, will mean using more figs to make your wine, but the high concentration works towards a more mellow and mature result.
Cherry wine
Persimmon wine
Cheers! The best fruits that can be made into wine
Think beyond the grape and take your pick
FOOD Beverages
We all know that grapes are used to make wine. But did you know that most fruits and berries have the potential to produce wine? And if you fancy having a go at making your own wine at home, there are dozens of different fruits you can use to create an array of drinks worth raising your glass to.
Click through the following gallery and enjoy making and drinking any of these delightful fruit wines.