Black Forest Dessert Wine (Ingredient Kit)
Description
This dessert wine was made from a Cru Specialty kit that comes with all the necessary ingredients, including finings and sweetening/finishing blend. The yield is intended to be 3 gallons.
Ingredients
All ingredients and instructions come with the kit: [Cru Specialty Black Forest Dessert Wine](https://www.rjscraftwinemaking.com/cru-specialty/black-forest-dessert-wine/).
Starting SG was 1.114.
Instructions
According to the kit info, the yield is supposed to be 3 gallons. However, after my first racking on day 11, there was so much thick sediment, that I was left with about 2 1/4 gallons.
I continued to allow everything to settle, and racked again at day 60 and added finings.
At around day 65, filtered, added stabilizers (potassium sorbate and sulfites), and added the finishing blend for flavor/sweetness.
Prior to the finishing blend, SG was at .992, which puts this wine at roughly 15.7% ABV.
Notes
Many wine ingredient kits, if followed to the letter, have you bottling by day 30-45. I never do this. Instead, I treat kits like any other wine I make and extend the bulk aging process so that wine is bottled between day 60-90. Some people would even extend this more, allowing bulk aging for several months. Additionally, I don't follow kit instructions that advise adding sweetener prior to filtering. This particular kit instructed to add sweetener (the finishing blend) at the same time as the finings and then filter later if needed. This seems backwards to me. I fine first, allow as much sediment to drop as possible over several days, then filter (sometimes twice), and only then do I backsweeten the wine.
End Results
This was a wine for gifting, and I timed it to be bottled shortly before the holidays. At bottling, this wine was very drinkable (although too sweet for my palette). My friends and family who tried it were impressed with the strong chocolate cherry flavors. Even some pickier drinkers commented at how good it had turned out. I would definitely purchase this kit again and prepare it the same as described above.