Making grape mead from store bought grape juice.

[bluestone]

Like the title says I was wondering if its possible to make a good tasting grape mead from store bought grape juice.

The juice I was wondering about is made in Spain from a grape called "vitis merlot". The juice is a commercial juice that is 100% pure, pasteurized on low temperature, filtered and has a gravity of 1.06. Its originally manufactured for direct consumption and not for wine making, but is it still possible to make a grape mead from it? Or will it be lacking to much flavours and be a cheap crappy idea?

 

[McJeff]

Yes you can as long as the juice doesn't have preservatives in it. Google/search joes grape mead not done it myself.

 

[JDWebb]

I did it using Joe's Grape Mead recipe with Welch's grape juice, tastes like a cheap table wine, not bad at all really.

 

[bluestone]

Thanks for answers.

Does the this store bought juice have any other potential usages like increasing nutrient, tannin, body, flavour etc in melomels? for example to replace raisins in recipes, addition to dark berry melomels...

 

[McJeff]

i would still use nutrients as normal

 

[Medsen Fey]

The juice will add body tannins and some nutrients. It may not alleviate all your nutrient requirements. Even fermenting pure grape wine requires nutrients in many cases.

Sent from my THINGAMAJIG with WHATCHAMACALLIT

 

[bluestone]

The juice will add body tannins and some nutrients. It may not alleviate all your nutrient requirements. Even fermenting pure grape wine requires nutrients in many cases.

Sent from my THINGAMAJIG with WHATCHAMACALLIT

How does red grape juice match with other ingredients I like and can get fresh like blueberries, cherries, raspberries, blackberries, black/red currant, elderberries?

 

[Medsen Fey]

Match in terms of what?

Sent from my THINGAMAJIG with WHATCHAMACALLIT

 

[Chevette Girl]

If you think it will taste good in a grape wine, it probably will taste fine in a pyment (grape mead). First wine kit I ever made was raspberry merlot... although, like a lot of wine kits, the flavour pouch never saw any fruit other than grapes...

As for what goes well? You'd have to give it a try, if an addition holds up in taste as juice, it'll probably be noticeable as wine. If the flavour of whatever you're adding gets lost in the grape juice, it probably won't be any more potent once it's fermented. I can see black currants holding their own with a red wine, and raspberries probably have sufficient flavour, but I'm not so sure about blueberries or cherries, they might be better suited to a white grape juice ferment. I've used bottled juices to ferment before, the results are generally quite good. The pomegranate-elderberry blend turned into a mel was pretty kick-ass, definitely one of my better early creations.

Years ago, I did a batch of concord grape wine and combined the fermented fruit bag from that with the fermented fruit bag from a batch of raspberry wine and it took a few years to come into its own but the raspberry concord second run is actually pretty tasty now.

I've also done other unspeakable things with wine kits, including adding a few cans of Welch's Raspberry Concentrate to a finished white wine batch for a summerberry blush wine... it's just like adding a fruit pack from the more expensive kits, only it adds $4 to the price tag instead of $20

 

[JDWebb]

The best thing about making mead is the experiments. I recently got some plastic lids for my 1/2 gallon mason jars, drilled them out, fitted a 7/16 grommet to it for an airlock. I use them as small batch experiments, when I get something that I like, I ramp it up to a 1 gallon, 3 gallon or 5 gallon recipe.

As far as what goes with what, like what most are saying, if you think it might taste good, then do it. I would think any berry would go well with grape, I have a Welch's white grape fermenting with a sprig of rosemary in it!

 

[bluestone]

Thanks for answars.

...Match in terms of what?...

I was drinking a wine from blueberry and wine from dried elderberries on seperate occations that reminded me of red wine. So I was thinking that maybe grape juice could blend well with some berries and replace some of the water called for.

... I have a Welch's white grape fermenting with a sprig of rosemary in it!...

Thats pretty experimental. It probably at least be a delicious cooking mead.

 

[JDWebb]

Drop a sprig of rosemary in a bottle of Chardonnay for a few days, it drinks well!