Cherry wine a bit bland

[turtlescales]

Hey everyone! It's been ages since I was on the forum, but I'm back now! I've been making lots of tasty wines and beers since I was last on, and playing around with fruit wines. Have some really nice blueberry wine and a strawberry melomel that will be bottled very soon.

I have some questions on a current batch, I have 5 gallons of cherry wine going. Nothing fancy, about 24 pounds of sweet cherries and some EC 1118. The yeast probably didn't help the flavor, but it was all I had on hand at the time. This was one of those dump it all in the bucket and hope for the best wines, I don't have a starting gravity. I know, I know, shame on me.

It's been going for about 5 months now, smells divine but the taste is a bit flat. Crisp and dry with nice cherry notes, but still lacking complexity. Not the best cherries to use, going to try again this year with sour cherries but they were evicted from my freezer and I had to do something with them. Realized I completely spaced on adding any acid blend or tannins to it, it isn't too late to add those is it? Any suggestions on spicing it up a bit?

 

[Yooper]

You can definitely do those additions (or any other additions) now!

I'd probably take a tiny sample out, and add a tiny bit of acid blend, and maybe a minute amount of powdered tannin and see if that helps it. Definitely add less than you think you will need to the whole batch- you can always add more, but you can't take it out!

One of the things I like in a cherry wine, if it's "big" enough, is a bit of oaking. Have you thought of adding some oak chips or cubes? Or is it too light and fruity to stand up to oakiing?

 

[turtlescales]

Oaking would be amazing, but it is pretty light and fruity so I am not sure about it for this one. Maybe just a small amount? I have choke cherry growing all over the place down here, think that might be nice oaked?

Good idea for the additions, I will give that a go once I am done racking the others.

 

[Yooper]

I do oak many of my chokecherry wines, especially the ones intended for a fuller bodied dinner wine.