Cost of real pure grape juice versus concentrate – how to choose?

[James Burton]

If anyone of you winemaking brethren have used real grape juice (from supermarket carton, but not from concentrate) to make a successful wine, please let me have benefit of your skills, and comments regarding the widely differing pricings of the options on offer, some of which are listed below.
M&S Merlot Grape Juice - one litre pressed from around 80 grapes – not from concentrate – at £2.10 per carton, would give a demijohn’s worth of pure juice, say, five litres at cost of £10.50
As a comparison, one litre of Merlot concentrate in kit form e.g. Wine Buddy/Youngs 30 Bottle Merlot (liquid content one litre) comes in at £26.35. A huge discrepancy, explained by the fact that the one litre of concentrate is to end up as 23 litres after water and sugar solution are added. The ‘kit’ also contains small sachets of yeast, finings and potassium sorbate – just a few pence-worth in total. Scaling up the real juice to 23 litres minus the quantity of 4 kg sugar, say net 20 litres, cost is £42. Well known retailers B***hoo will sell you five litres concentrate for £53.49 (inc p and p) or £42.80 equivalent for four litres: coincidence? Or £10.70 per one litre inc p and p) It appears that real juice costs the same as concentrate, at least by this comparison.
At the other end of the market on eBay, a white wine 30 bottle 7 day ‘kit’ can be had for £22.39 inc p and p, and close examination of the ingredients photo, shows the ‘kit’ to contain merely a one litre bottle of concentrate plus the usual penn’orth of yeast, etc.: yet the same one litre bottle of generic white wine concentrate can be had from the same B***hoo website for £11.99, although you do have to pay another £4 p and p.
So, grape wine: £16 quid, £22.39 or £53.49 and up?
Does the real juice make a ‘better’ wine than the concentrate, is, I suppose, at the heart of my question

 

[Chippy_Tea]

If anyone of you winemaking brethren have used real grape juice (from supermarket carton, but not from concentrate) to make a successful wine, please let me have benefit of your skills, and comments regarding the widely differing pricings of the options on offer, some of which are listed below.

M&S Merlot Grape Juice - one litre pressed from around 80 grapes – not from concentrate – at £2.10 per carton, would give a demijohn’s worth of pure juice, say, five litres at cost of £10.50

I have made hundreds of gallons of wine from supermarket juice (thread below) from concentrate and not from concentrate there is no difference in the final product whichever you use so use the cheapest.

You don't use 4.5 litres of 100% juice when making wine it would end up like alcopop we use 2.5 litres in a DJ read the thread below it explains the method etc -

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/...ne-how-to-guide-and-recipes.49462/post-456519

Whether you’ve just picked up a bottle of ‘from concentrate’ or ‘not from concentrate’ juice, it’s important to understand what your juice has gone through to get from the great outdoors to the bottle in your fridge.
While all juices go through a manufacturing process to ensure they’re all safe to drink, ‘not from concentrate’ is created by juicing the fruit and then processing it without any water removal or reconstitution, whereas ‘from concentrate’ can be a tad more complex. This time the fruit is juiced and then filtered, extracted and evaporated to remove almost all the water. Why all the trouble? This process makes the juice easier and cheaper to transport and package, and also gives it a longer shelf life.

 

[HeartOfGold]

Well, the guy of home wine making channel in Youtube said that wine made from concentrate can sometimes have a specific concentrate taste. I cannot confirm or deny.

Anyway, whatever you choose, it's gonna be far better than Welch's. Missing MLF is what has kept me from making a red wine from concentrate. I'm just not sure if a red wine kit is the same when almost all commercial red wines go through it. I plan to make a pyment with a concentrate at some point though.

 

[An Ankoù]

This stuff claims a carbohydrate content of 15. 7 g per 100 ml, of which all is sugar. That's going to give you an OG of about 1060 and if it all ferments out to an FG of 1000 you'll get 8% abv. There's something a bit iffy about this juice, either it;s diluted with water or it contains very little sugar. You should be looking at a potential alcohol of 12-14% from merlot grapes.
Grapes are in season, buy 80 and see if you can get a litre of juice out of them. I'll bet you can't.

 

[jof]

I've successfully made red wine from Lidl red grape juice at low cost.
However, we only get that when Lidl decide the red grape juice is cheap enough for them to stock.
So, bad year, no red grape juice

 

[MashBag]

Grapes are in season,

Buy grapes and make wine.

 

[MashBag]

I have over the years made all sorts of things into wine.

Nothing compares to grape wine. Buy a few boxes of wine making grapes this time of the year. Make it up, and you have something quite special.

 

[An Ankoù]

If anyone of you winemaking brethren have used real grape juice (from supermarket carton, but not from concentrate) to make a successful wine, please let me have benefit of your skills, and comments regarding the widely differing pricings of the options on offer, some of which are listed below.
M&S Merlot Grape Juice - one litre pressed from around 80 grapes – not from concentrate – at £2.10 per carton, would give a demijohn’s worth of pure juice, say, five litres at cost of £10.50
As a comparison, one litre of Merlot concentrate in kit form e.g. Wine Buddy/Youngs 30 Bottle Merlot (liquid content one litre) comes in at £26.35. A huge discrepancy, explained by the fact that the one litre of concentrate is to end up as 23 litres after water and sugar solution are added. The ‘kit’ also contains small sachets of yeast, finings and potassium sorbate – just a few pence-worth in total. Scaling up the real juice to 23 litres minus the quantity of 4 kg sugar, say net 20 litres, cost is £42. Well known retailers B***hoo will sell you five litres concentrate for £53.49 (inc p and p) or £42.80 equivalent for four litres: coincidence? Or £10.70 per one litre inc p and p) It appears that real juice costs the same as concentrate, at least by this comparison.
At the other end of the market on eBay, a white wine 30 bottle 7 day ‘kit’ can be had for £22.39 inc p and p, and close examination of the ingredients photo, shows the ‘kit’ to contain merely a one litre bottle of concentrate plus the usual penn’orth of yeast, etc.: yet the same one litre bottle of generic white wine concentrate can be had from the same B***hoo website for £11.99, although you do have to pay another £4 p and p.
So, grape wine: £16 quid, £22.39 or £53.49 and up?
Does the real juice make a ‘better’ wine than the concentrate, is, I suppose, at the heart of my question

Genuine question here.
WHY?
I make country wines because I'm not blown away with grape wines. Even more expensive grape wines. But Why do people make grape wine out of supermarket juice? Is the result comparable with a cheap bottle of plonk, or is it considerably better than that?
I would have thought that supermarket grape juice is the juice rejected by the winemakers. Maybe I'm wrong.
Or is it about being able to say "This is my wine. I made this."

 

[An Ankoù]

I have over the years made all sorts of things into wine.

Nothing compares to grape wine. Buy a few boxes of wine making grapes this time of the year. Make it up, and you have something quite special.

I'm at a loss, @MashBag .
Can we really make decent wine out of supermarket dessert grapes? Why aren't the winemakers using them?
I ask from genuine ignorance because I've never tried. Not too fond of grape wine to tell the truth.
I love NZ Marlborough S. Blanc and French Pouilly Fumé, but that's about as far as it goes. The Wise One is French and so there's always a red on the go and I often choose one for her, but a sip or two is enough for me. I found it boring.

 

[MashBag]

supermarket grape juice is the juice rejected by the winemakers.

Yes it is, but not directly. Grapes have many varieties, qualities and uses.

Like many crops it is grown for its value and growers sell it as a commodity.

 

[MashBag]

Can we really make decent wine out of supermarket dessert grapes?

Hmm. I think it's a mixed answer.

White probably. Red no.

White method is typically reductive, that is to get to clear juice before fermentation is started.
Which is sort of where white juice is?

Red method is typically 'all in'. Skins, pips and stalks.
Red wine 'must' is nothing like juice. For starters, you can't shovel juice with a compost fork

So imo no. Some years ago I was discussing improving red kits (by adding a skin pouch) with the owner of a leading kit maker.

Skins matter in red.
So no red wine doesn't lend itself to starting from supermarket juice.

And that doesn't include all the boiling, baking and buggerations that go on in the factory before the yeast even get near it.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Genuine question here.
But Why do people make grape wine out of supermarket juice? Is the result comparable with a cheap bottle of plonk, or is it considerably better than that?

Back in 2013 white grape juice was readily available so making white wine was easy and many did it

When white grape juice vanished a few years later we moved to red grape juice our red grape and apple juice wine was in our view as good as a cheap bottle of Rose wine but at 50p for a 750ml bottle far cheaper.

Here is where it all started - https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/...ne-how-to-guide-and-recipes.49462/post-456519

Or is it about being able to say "This is my wine. I made this."

For me it was the buzz of making something nice to drink out of cartons of juice.

 

[An Ankoù]

Why has white juice disappeared, but not red? I thought (possibly mistakenly) that white wine could be made from red grapes if the juice were allowed to run freely; the red colour coming from the skins. I've seen white juice on the supermarket shelves over here. I wonder why you can't get it.

I'm no stranger to wine making, my first batch was in 1970 when I was a skint student. But it was all foraged stuff, especially blackberries, which is still my favourite. I could afford a bag of sugar, but I certainly couldn't afford malt extract.
In retrospect it was a tension between nicotine and alcohol. Blackberry wine gave the best of both worlds.
Happy days.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

The crops failed so they didn't have enough to let the lower quality grapes go to supermarkets, they ralised demand wasn't very high so stopped stocking it I guess red grapes are less prone to fail so are always available.

 

[Tanglefoot]

Best country wines I've made have been

Blackberry 80%/Elderberry 20%
Apple, mixed eaters 70% cookers 30%

I use 100% grape juice after racking to top up and give yeast a little boost.

Whilst I love these wines, I agree they aren't comparable to those made from grapes, closest I've made is a crisp dry white apple.

Fresh or seasonal ingredients will always make a superior end product, so pressed fruit juice is only supplementary for me.

Recently the only 100% white grape juice
I've been able to find is this kosher brand
from Sainsburys called Kedem
https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/natural-gold-grape-juice-650ml


If you're looking at this from cost comparison perspective, using fresh, home grown or foraged fruit is always going to be cheaper ( and taste better )
though not as quick or convenient maybe.

 

[MashBag]

Apples, frozen and pressed. Made up to 10% alc, with elderflower* makes a smashing white. That you can hardly tell it apple.

*or green bottle cordial