Characteristics of strawberry wine

Wine can be produced from a variety of substrates (fruits) such as strawberry, cherries, apple, and pomegranate and the produced wine is popularly known as fruit wine.

Among all the fruit wines strawberry have a unique desirable flavor which makes it one of the most popular summer fruit. Sugar and acids provide sweetness and tartness, whereas volatiles compounds give the fruity characteristic aroma.

Seventy-eight volatile compounds were found in the strawberry wine, including 25 alcohols, 25 esters, five ketones, four aldehydes, nine terpenes, four acids, five phenols, and one styrene. During the fermentation, the composition of aroma compounds changed over time.

A typical wine contains sugars, acids, ethyl alcohol, higher alcohols or fusel oils, tannins, aldehydes, esters, amino acids, minerals, vitamins, anthocyanin, fatty acids, minor constituents like methanol, a number of flavouring compounds, etc.

Considering their relatively low odor threshold and diversity, esters are positive contributors to wine flavor, especially in young wine.

Wines made from more mature fruits had greater colour intensity and higher levels of anthocyanins. Anthocyanin content in carbonic macerated free run wines showed higher value compared to those skins fermented or pressed wines.
Characteristics of strawberry wine

Production of strawberry wine

Fruit wines are generally prepared by yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) fermentation of sugared juices or diluted concentrates. Fruit wines volatiles include aroma compounds at are already present in the fresh fruit and remain unchanged during processing and aging.

Strawberry wine of good quality has the appealing color of premium rose wine. When frozen berries are employed to make wine, these are first thawed and the juice is extracted.

The juice is ameliorated to 22 °Brix by the addition of cane-sugar added in stages e.g. 25% of the total sugar added to prepare the must and the rest during fermentation.

Sweetening before aging preserves flavor and color but the sweetened wine must be stored under refrigeration to prevent refermentation.

Strawberry wine is difficult to filter. Addition of a peptic enzyme would be desirable with this variety. Treatment with enzymes mainly pectinases, inhibits polymerization and increases color extraction and color density in strawberry wine.

The composition and maturity of the fruits and mold contamination affect the quality of the wine. But over-ripe fruits with higher anthocyanins and total phenolics, give wines with better color than fully ripe fruits.
Production of strawberry wine

Cashew Apples and Cashew Nuts – the History

Cashew Apples and Cashew Nuts – the History
Brazilian Indian use of cashew nuts and apples is well documented in French, Portuguese and Dutch accounts between 1550 and 1650. The Tupi name acaju became caju in Portuguese and cashew in English.

The juice of the cashew apple has been and still is fermented to make wine. In 1558, Thevet published a drawing of Indians harvesting what were unmistakably cashew fruits and squeezing the juice from apples.

The cashew was probably spread by the Indians as a dooryard garden tree, but there is nor record of systematic planting. It may have been spread by prehistoric Indians into Guianas and eastern Venezuela.

It was probably a dooryard garden plant of the Caribs in the Lesser Antilles. It was not among the plants of the Arawaks of the Greater Antilles, nor was it in Colombia, Central America, or Mexico at the time of the Spanish Conquest. First Spanish accounts were from Venezuela in the mid 16th century.

The Indians roasted cashew nuts in open fires, burning off the caustic shell oil. The Portuguese were quick to adopt the simple Indian techniques of roasting the nuts and making wine from the cashew apples. They occasionally sent some nuts to Lisbon as early as the mid-17th century.

By 1750, cashews quickly were widely planted throughout tropical America, not just for the nuts but as a multiple-purpose garden tree. It made a fine dooryard shade tree, provided the lower branches were pruned.

It was evergreen and pest free, the sap of the trunk should be tapped for an insect repellent, protective varnish. The cashew apple yielded tasty, fresh juice and could be made into preserves. The wine could be distilled for brandy. Excess volunteer trees were cut for firewood and charcoal. Commercial cashew plantations in tropical America were not begun until the 20th century.

Meanwhile, the species had become pantropical. The Portuguese introduced it into India in the 1560s, perhaps more as a source of wine and brandy than for the nuts. Cashew trees were reported in gardens of Cochin on the Malabar Coast and Goa in the 1570s and 1580s. Four hundred years later India remained the world’s main producer of cashew liquor at a rate of about 250,000 gallons a year.
Cashew Apples and Cashew Nuts – the History

Wine and Wine Vinegar from Grapes

Wine and Wine Vinegar from Grapes
Considerable quantities of wines are manufactured in the United States. The European varieties of wines are mainly used for making wines. The various procedures are used in the production of wines. The pressed juice method usually used after treatment with sulfur dioxide or compounds that liberate by natural yeasts surviving the sulfur dioxide treatment. During fermentation, sugars are converted to ethyl alcohol until a level of 12-14% alcohol, and these may be used as such for fortifying wines to obtain higher alcohol content.

In manufacture of wine vinegar, fermented grape juice (containing alcohol) is allowed to drip over wood shavings in an enclosed cylindrical container. The shaving previously soaked in a high quality vinegar. Air may be introduced into the generator under pressure, bacteria of Acetobacter group present (from the vinegar) on the shavings convert the ethyl alcohol in the wine to acetic acid.

The effluent from the vinegar generator may be collected and recycled to obtain a complete conversion of the ethyl alcohol. The finished vinegar may be stored for several months at 40 – 50 degree F, then filtered, bottled and pasteurized.
Wine and Wine Vinegar from Grapes