Sauternes style wine

[dpile1]

*This was posted by me on another forum but I thought it might be of interest to you guys here too*

I had tried to recreate the style of a Sauternes 'Dessert' Wine by making a Raisin Wine but it ended in complete failure.

However I did find an excellent website all about homemade wine and this page caught my eye:

http://www.thewinepages.org.uk/sauternes-home-winemaking-dessert-wine-yquem.shtml

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

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 then 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 about a year ago. I bought a California Connoisseur Chardonnay / Semillon 6 bottle wine kit from my local homebrew shop.

http://www.homebrewcentre.co.uk/product.asp?pID=1333&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 some photos 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

[dpile1]

I'll be trying a bottle of this in a few weeks and will post an update on how it's looking.

Cheers

[goldseal]

Sounds interesting.

If it turns out OK, you could post the recipe in the Recipes section (but please include full credits and a link back to the original article).

[NorthernWiner]

A very innovative technique! Note that one of the things that sets commercial Sauternes apart - and which adds greatly to the cost - is the presence of botrytis cinerea (aka "noble rot"). It's a naturally occurring fungus that dehydrates the grapes, thus increasing the sugar level and imparting a complex flavor. It would be impossible to mimic this in a kit, but that's not to say that the method described doesn't produce a pleasant tasting dessert wine.

Your bottlings look very good, by the way, though I would suggest maybe increasing the fill level slightly. You want to keep it within 1/2 to 3/4 inch from the bottom of the cork. This is especially important when using 375 ml bottles, as it will aid in preventing premature oxidation.