We made some wine from the few pounds if Niagara harvested from our property last fall. Only six 375 ml bottles were made. This was really a small lot. However, we tended the vines and grapes, harvested the grapes and made wine. The whole experience was valuable. I fermented the wine to dry however wanted to sweeten it before bottling.
A winemaker suggested that I look into sweetening the wine with Splenda. The argument is that Splenda has non-fermentable form of sweetness. I first began to research winemaking forums for opinions of using Splenda to sweeten wine before bottling. There were two schools of thought. One was that Splenda is non-fermentable and would work perfectly. This was the predominant opinion. The other school of thought is that over time, the Splenda would break down into fermentable sugars. If there were yeasts in the bottle, the wine will begin to ferment.
Well, I opened a bottle to have with a shrimp risotto last evening. As soon as the cork was removed there was fizz in the neck of the bottle. When the wine was poured into wine glasses, it fizzed almost as much as a sparkling wine. However there was no stream of bubbles from the bottom of the glass. My guess was that the wine did re-ferment in the bottle. Most winemakers would say this was a faulty wine.
It tasted wonderful! The aroma and taste were very floral with the typical Niagara characteristics. There was enough effervescence to slightly tickle the tongue. The finish was somewhat cleansing and there was a long aftertaste that became what many refer to as foxy. However when paired with the shrimp risotto, the foxy finish stopped. This made a good pairing. We enjoyed this wine and now the challenge is to make it again. I wonder what would happen if I bottled it in beer bottles and capped it?
Cheers,
Terry
If you ask me, if you liked it, it was success. With that said, personally I would avoid splenda just because of the extra chemicals. Most of the time, we are adding a number of chemicals to turn juice into wine and I prefer to keep it to a minimum. Good luck on the beer! I don’t have much advice to offer there.
We liked it. Will try more today with family. Next year I’ll ferment the Niagara to dry and sweeten with concentrate. Still like the fizz and may experiment with different bottles that can withstand some pressure.
Hi really enjoyed reading your article and was wondering When a traditional wine style is altered by modern winemaking, should the winery have to label it thusly?
Why should one label an altered modern wine any more than a traditional wine? Even traditional winemakers add stuff to their wines that consumers are unaware of such as yeast, sugar, tartaric acid and potassium metabisulfite. Then there are a range of winemaking products such as HE Grand Cru, VR Supra, Tan’Cor, Quertanin and the list goes on. Many of these winemaking products come from the Bordeaux company Laffort. Prior to making winemaking products, the Laffort family were pharmacists. During the 19th century it was common for winemakers to take their wine to pharmacists to have it evaluated and fix problems. The Laffort Company was founded in 1895.
Either all wine should list what went into it or no wine should have to list everything that went into it.