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Wine making and grape juice

Hic I'm not as thunk as drenkle peep. Glirch.
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Wine making and grape juice

Postby jeral » Wed Sep 25, 2013 4:06 pm

Someone asked (elsewhere) where to buy red grape juice to use to top up the liquid in a batch of elderberry wine.

It got me to wondering what the difference is between grape juice and 0% ABV wine. I know one is fermented then alcohol magically removed.

Not sure what I'm asking really. Is alc-free wine equal to concentrated grape juice? Except perhaps in "body"?

Ta.

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Re: Wine making and grape juice

Postby Stokey Sue » Wed Sep 25, 2013 4:17 pm

When you ferment juice to make wine the most obvious change is that most of the sugar turns to alcohol

However a lot of other biochemical changes occur, for example the structure of the tannins change, the fruit acids can be converted to other compounds etc. etc. Plus the wine picks up substances from the yeast too

So if at the end of this process you magically remove the alcohol (usually by fractional freezing) the de-alcoholised wine tastes little like the original grape juice, even if you restore the sugar content to the starting point; everything has changed, not just the sugar/alcohol

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Re: Wine making and grape juice

Postby jeral » Wed Sep 25, 2013 5:11 pm

Coo-er - lots of differences then!

Stokey Sue, it's something I've wondered about for ages actually.

Many thanks :)

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