Fruit Quality When Making Wine

Good fruit = good wine.  Shitty fruit = shitty wine. See where I'm going...

All of the great winemakers are very selective when choosing their grapes for the best vintages.  Grapes are selected on location, flavour, ripeness, acid and tannin levels.  All of these things affects the quality of the wine. This should be the same for your Country Fruit Wines.  

Of course we might not be able to test for specific sugar, acid and tannin levels in the fruit you want to use for winemaking, but does it taste good? Would you make a pie out of green peaches, or leave stems and leaves attached to the blueberries when you're making muffins? Of course not! Same should go for making wine.

I'll give a few more specific preparation notes below but here's some tips for all fruit brought in for making wine...

1. Use ripe fruit, but not fruit that is overly ripe and starting to rot.
2. Cut out all brown, mushy and spoiled fruit.
3. Rinse all of the fruit clean.
4. Remove all bugs, leaves, twigs and stems.
5. Freeze your fruit. This breaks down the cellular structure of the fruit, softening it and allowing the juice to be released easier.

---

Specific Tips

Apples-Crabapples-Pears

• If larger than a golf ball, cut in half​
• Remove stem and blossom end

---

Pomegranates

• Remove rind and white pith from seeds

---

Strawberries

• ​Remove stems

Peaches-Nectarines-Apricots-Kiwis-Plums

• Peel off fuzzy skin 
• Cut in half or quarter
• Remove pit

---

Cherries

• Take off stems
• Remove pits

---

Chokecherries

• Remove stems
• Do not worry about pits

Pineapples-Mangoes

• Remove rind and core
• Cut into large chunks or spears

---

Rhubarb

• Remove leaves
• Cut into 2-3" pieces

---

Blackberries-Strawberries-Raspberries-Currants-Cranberries-Saskatoons-Haskaps-Huckleberries

• Remove stems and leaves