Best Brandy to fortify wine and make "port"?

[ChinaVoodoo]

Wondering which Brandy to use.
Chilean Pinot Noir juice,
Wyeast 4267 Summation Red yeast
Toasted oak chips

The Brandy I think, but I'll entertain other ideas, should be oaky, and cheap. I plan on using 3l to 4.5l of Brandy in 18l of wine.

 

[chuditch]

Ok I make wine and Port is different to wine as in it has still got a high sugar content which normally you try to ferment out of your must. So if you have a sugar content of 14% you use a yeast that will go to a higher alcohol content than 14% as a rule of thumb 1% sugar will equal around 1% alcohol.
With port and sherry they are a fortified wine and that is the addition of brandy spirit which is non aged distilled spirit from grapes. So it is clear and non aged like moonshine. The port needs to be above 19% ABV (Alcohol By Volume) to prevent fermentation starting from wild yeasts on the extra sugar in the port. So 21% is a safer bet.
So the wine you use still needs to be high in sugar the fermentation stopped before it has used it all up and the spirit is only there to stop further fermentation not to add the oak taste.
What we do is we have a 50 litre barrel (made from a recycled brandy barrel which I filled with a medium quality port and add one bottle of brandy per year and continually top up with port. You will have constant evaporation from the barrel alcohol when is dry and water when its humid (could be the other way around) so the volume drops in your barrel so keep it topped up. Topping to the top is best to reduce any air space and you will be amazed and how much improved your port will be in a year from what you originally put into the barrel. Get a used barrel for preference as you want your port to age not take on a massive oak hit. If I can help more let me know. I do like a glass of port with a fine cigar in front of the fire.

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

Ok I make wine and Port is different to wine as in it has still got a high sugar content which normally you try to ferment out of your must. So if you have a sugar content of 14% you use a yeast that will go to a higher alcohol content than 14% as a rule of thumb 1% sugar will equal around 1% alcohol.
With port and sherry they are a fortified wine and that is the addition of brandy spirit which is non aged distilled spirit from grapes. So it is clear and non aged like moonshine. The port needs to be above 19% ABV (Alcohol By Volume) to prevent fermentation starting from wild yeasts on the extra sugar in the port. So 21% is a safer bet.
So the wine you use still needs to be high in sugar the fermentation stopped before it has used it all up and the spirit is only there to stop further fermentation not to add the oak taste.
What we do is we have a 50 litre barrel (made from a recycled brandy barrel which I filled with a medium quality port and add one bottle of brandy per year and continually top up with port. You will have constant evaporation from the barrel alcohol when is dry and water when its humid (could be the other way around) so the volume drops in your barrel so keep it topped up. Topping to the top is best to reduce any air space and you will be amazed and how much improved your port will be in a year from what you originally put into the barrel. Get a used barrel for preference as you want your port to age not take on a massive oak hit. If I can help more let me know. I do like a glass of port with a fine cigar in front of the fire.

Using a barrel sounds like quite the process and likely more than I can handle, but the advice on the alcohol percentage means that since I'm at 14.6%, if I did my math correctly, 4.5l of brandy should do the trick and bring it to 20.7%. The plan is to defy tradition a little and make this relatively dry because although I like the flavour of Port, I don't enjoy the sweetness. Perhaps after fortifying, if it needs more sugar, I can add some in a form of some kind. What do you think?

 

[rustycase]

brandy to fortify wine?

Seems to me, the brandy would flavor the wine.
Is that your intent?

A personal friend works in the lab of a local winery.
John uses 190 proof clear alcohol to 'fortify' wine, before it is bottled, to bring it to a consistent, desired alcohol content.

Dangerous stuff, that 190 proof ! lol

Best
rc

 

[deluxestogie]

As I recall, the inventor of Brandy was hoping to create an "instant" wine, that could be reconstituted with water. The purpose was to improve shelf life, while lowering transport costs. Who knew people would like drinking it straight?

Bob

 

[kullas]

I would say apple brandy, the clear kind.

 

[Knucklehead]

A brief history and description of Port: http://wine.about.com/od/fortifiedwines/a/Port.htm

 

[Knucklehead]

Homemade Port Wine recipes:
http://makinghomemadewineandbeer.blogspot.com/2006/05/port-wine-recipe.html
http://www.brewplus.com/making-wine/how-to-make-easy-delicious-homemade-port-wine/
http://thewinespot.org/making-port-wine-at-home.html
https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search...fr2=sa-gp-search&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-002

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

A brief history and description of Port: http://wine.about.com/od/fortifiedwines/a/Port.htm

I enjoyed the read. Thanks Knucklehead.

 

[squeezyjohn]

In the industry in Europe they use clear un-aged grape brandy to fortify wines but a pure ethanol like Everclear would do the job just as well as long as you adjust for the difference in alcohol content. Provided you get the final alcohol content up to 18%-20% abv the wine will keep for a long time and keep for a long time.

 

[chuditch]

Using a barrel sounds like quite the process and likely more than I can handle, but the advice on the alcohol percentage means that since I'm at 14.6%, if I did my math correctly, 4.5l of brandy should do the trick and bring it to 20.7%. The plan is to defy tradition a little and make this relatively dry because although I like the flavour of Port, I don't enjoy the sweetness. Perhaps after fortifying, if it needs more sugar, I can add some in a form of some kind. What do you think?

personally I would recommend buying already produced port and just adding a half cup of brandy every year to your 20 litres that you keep constantly topped up. And again I would recommend that you keep it ageing in a wooden barrel so that it keeps improving. Very slow improving in a glass vessel but a small wooden barrel works wonders the surface area to volume. Forgot to say use a vintage port not a tawny port to put back into a barrel to continue ageing.

 

[Knucklehead]

personally I would recommend buying already produced port and just adding a half cup of brandy every year to your 20 litres that you keep constantly topped up. And again I would recommend that you keep it ageing in a wooden barrel so that it keeps improving. Very slow improving in a glass vessel but a small wooden barrel works wonders the surface area to volume. Forgot to say use a vintage port not a tawny port to put back into a barrel to continue ageing.

If you are slowly drinking Port from the barrel (instead of just aging and replacing what has evaporated), would you replace what you take out with wine, then add Brandy once a year to keep alcohol content up?

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

personally I would recommend buying already produced port and just adding a half cup of brandy every year to your 20 litres that you keep constantly topped up. And again I would recommend that you keep it ageing in a wooden barrel so that it keeps improving. Very slow improving in a glass vessel but a small wooden barrel works wonders the surface area to volume. Forgot to say use a vintage port not a tawny port to put back into a barrel to continue ageing.

Thank you for your idea. I must say, this sounds like a delicious way of improving port. Problem is, even the cheapest port ever will cost $600 for twenty litres. The entire purpose of my home brewing is to make tasty stuff for cheap. I've started with good quality yeast and juice, and it's a nice wine already without ageing. Just want to fortify it now.

If I can find a small barrel, I can do like you suggest using this port I'm making to start with instead of buying commercially made port.

 

[chuditch]

If you are slowly drinking Port from the barrel (instead of just aging and replacing what has evaporated), would you replace what you take out with wine, then add Brandy once a year to keep alcohol content up?

Exactly. I have a 25 litre barrel and try to keep it topped up all the time with port. Just grab a reasonable low priced vintage port not a Tawny. try to keep the barrel full to make the most use of the surface area inside the barrel and to reduce the amount of airspace in contact with the port. Then once a year add about half a cup of brandy to replace what has evaporated. My barrel has been in use for 35 years now so some of the very original port will still be in there as part of the mix. You will be amazed at how much the port will improve over 3 months 6 months and a year in the barrel. Don't even think about trying to do your own ageing of sherry though that is an entirely different ball game.

 

[Planter]

Taylor is quite specific about it: "As the fermenting wine pours into the vat, a very clean young wine brandy is added to it. This colourless neutral spirit, at strength of 77% alcohol, is usually added in a ratio of about 115 litres of brandy to 435 litres of fermenting wine...The quality of the brandy is very important."


http://www.taylor.pt/en/what-is-port-wine/how-is-port-made/

 

[wrapper]

Taylor is quite specific about it: "As the fermenting wine pours into the vat, a very clean young wine brandy is added to it. This colourless neutral spirit, at strength of 77% alcohol, is usually added in a ratio of about 115 litres of brandy to 435 litres of fermenting wine...The quality of the brandy is very important."

Planter is quite right: I have been making wine and distilling (commercially) since 1990 and putting aside a little port to age is one of life's pleasures. Unaged brandy at around 70%alc is the best. The higher the proof, the less the flavour contribution from the spirit. The key though is the timing of the fortification to retain just enough residual sweetness to keep the port in balance. Too much sugar masks the structure and flavour profile. Fruit, acidity, tannin, sugar, oak and alcohol need to be in harmony.