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Forgot fruit wine with citrus zest in it for over a month

BUMPSIES: Update and discussion on bitters/aperitif in comments

This particular little wine was supposed to have the fruits in it for ten days. I forgot all about it over Christmas stress so the fruit has been soaking for over a month. I racked it today and boy does it have an aftertaste of the zest. Do you think it can be recovered? Will the zesty bitterness reduce from aging? Or can I do something else about it?

11 comments
  • I had a plum wine which was quite bitter. Sweetening it helped a bunch, so that's my recommendation 🙂

  • I've been reading up on this. It seems when it comes excessive bitterness in food, there are a few strategies.

    A couple of them are an obvious no go, like using fats or dairy. Then are plenty of advice to spice up to hide the bitterness, dunno if that is really appropriate either unless hot spicy chili wine becomes a thing.

    A viable route might be that the bitter flavor can be reduced due to how human tastebuds perceive or prioritize by either making it more sweet or sour.

    Finally, bitterness can come from alkaline pH, which I guess is why making it more sour might work, but both my chemistry (and biology) fu are shamefully weak. Interestingly one recommendation is to add baking soda to the overly bitter dish, but reading up on baking soda, it has a bitter taste itself due to being alkaline, so it sounds weird.

    My plan now is to make a couple of testers with non fermentable sweetener and lemon juice, let them rest for a while and see if any of them seem worth it to try rescue the rest of the batch.

    Any thoughts or comments?

  • I guess it's a particular problem with citrus which has a bitter taste in the zest. Mostly make wine out of grapes and keep the zest in sometimes for years and it has no impact.

11 comments