Although we highly recommend you use fresh fruit or even frozen fruit, it’s possible to make fruit wine with 100% juice frozen concentrate. The legacy of wine, especially fruit wine, has proven that anything with a fermentable sugar can be converted into alcohol.
100% juice concentrates can be an acceptable solution when the fruit you desire is out of season, too pricey, or you want to experiment with your wine. Take a stroll down the freezer aisle of your local supermarket and discover a large variety of 100% juice concentrates. Keep in mind these are not the add water, mix well type of frozen concentrates -- target the 100% juice concentrates or purees.
Using a 100% juice concentrate will also save time on processing your fruit for fruit wine. While the flavors won’t be as vibrant as fresh or even frozen fruit you won’t have to be concerned about any chemical additives. Since it’s frozen, the makers of juice concentrate rarely use any preservatives in their products.
Adding Juice Concentrate To Fruit Wine
Frozen concentrate can also be used to top off fruit wine. As an example, let’s say you’ve made an apple wine from fresh fruit during October and you’ve just added the metabisulphite. It’s now mid-November and you notice a ½ gallon of head space in your fermenter. This is not good. You’ll need to top the wine off, but apples are out of season. Instead of using water, use some frozen apple juice. The wine gets to remain full of flavor and you’ll avoid the risk infecting your wine with wild bacteria.