My Sauternes Style Dessert Wine

[dpile1]

As some may remember I recently embarked on a couple of experiments to try to recreate a Sauternes style homebrew wine, but without the price tag of a real one.

My initial 'Raisin Wine' (which I spoke about on here) ended in an abject failure, however I did find an excellent website all about homemade wine and this page caught my eye:

http://www.thewinepages.org.uk/sauterne ... quem.shtml

To sum up, the author recommends buying a Semillon based wine kit and throwing the instructions away. :shock:

Instead the idea is to put the grape concentrate into a demi-john and, using water or juice, dilute it until the S.G is around 1.135. The must is allowed to ferment down to about 1.040 before treating the wine with a campden tablet and potassium sorbate.
This results in a sweet, rich, syrupy wine of about 12.6%. The taste, being made from Semillon, is supposedly closer to Sauternes then other non-grape recipes......

Anyway, I thought I'd give this a go and made up a batch a few months ago. I bought a California Connoisseur Chardonnay / Semillon 6 bottle wine kit from my local homebrew shop.

http://www.homebrewcentre.co.uk/product ... 333&cID=79

I then did as the recipe said and diluted the concentrate (I ended up with about 1.145). I added the oak and allowed it to ferment down to 1.040 giving me 14%APV.

I added a campden tablet and potassium sorbate then a few days later racked it. A while passed before I finally racked it again before filtering and bottling the wine.

Here’s a photo of the finished result:

There was a little left over for immediate sampling and I was VERY surprised at just how good it tastes. It’s not Chateau d’Yquem but it’s definitely along the lines of a Sauternes and I’ve got six 37.5cl bottles of it for about £12!

Anyway, if anyone likes sweet dessert wines and Sauternes in particular, have a crack at making the recipe from the website above. The main reason for me writing this post is that I’ve bumbled upon something which is, in my mind, a bit special and wanted to share with you guys.

Cheers :

Darren

 

[suzie]

Wow that looks and sounds lovely. I wonder if you will be able to leave it for 6 years as recommended. My dh would love this wine but not sure if he could wait that long. Maybe I will make it for him and not tell him about it

 

[dpile1]

I seriously doubt I'll be able to leave it that long, one will probably be opened around the New Year - just to check...!

 

[suzie]

Where did you get those smaller bottles from?
I looked at the ones in Tesco but I didnt think a cork would fit into the top.

 

[dpile1]

I got them from here.

http://www.hamstead-brewing-centre.co.uk/itm00718.htm

I had to have them delivered which cost about £6.

They take a normal sized cork - although I didn't think they would when they turned up :hmm:

It was a real pain trying to find them!

 

[metalmickey]

I made the same raisin brew and turned it into a desert wine by mixing it with an oversweet "cheeky vimto". It now tastes like a greek VinSanto, but the original raisin brew on its own was a bit rough around the edges.

if you manage to make the raisin wine again and you like your sweet desert wines give it a try.

Neil

 

[dpile1]

Thanks for the tip there Neil, I'll probably have another go with the raisin wine at some point I'm sure. :thumb:

 

[jonboymentalhealth]

looking good