Can You Make Wine From Other Fruits?

We generally think of wine as a beverage made from grape juice, but can you make wine with other fruits? Well yes you can. Even the U.S. government’s Tax and Trade Bureau defines wine as being made from grapes, other fruit, and even other suitable agricultural products.

In fact you can make wine with many fruits such as damsons, elderberries, bananas & coconuts. Even rhubarb which is a vegetable. Often these wines are made in sweeter styles, and are always consumed young.

Why are grapes the prime ingredient?

However there are reasons grapes are the prime ingredient. The grape the only fruit with the right combination of sugars, juice and yeast on the skin to make fermentation and the production of an alcoholic beverage a natural process. To make wine from other fruits you have to mash the fruit and usually add water. Then have all sorts of adjustments to make, such as adding tartaric acid, sugar, tannins and so on. As a side note, you might like to know how to go about making your own country wine, and you can find out here.

Chart Showing The Sugar Content of Various Fruits

Grapes on the other hand contain enough tartaric acid, tannins that will naturally turn them into a beverage that has a good mouth feel. Well almost...making quality wine is a little more complex than waiting for nature to take its course. However somewhere in the history of mankind, someone somewhere drank some grape juice that had fermented, and they liked the experience. Wine was born! For a more in depth article click here.