What’s Grapefruit?

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Wine is made from grapes, as even teetotalers know, and grapes are fruit. What many people don’t realize, though, is that wine can be fermented from other fruits or even grains and flowers. Elderberry, blackberry, and apple wines are longtime household favorites that grandparents or great-grandparents may have sipped on, but grapefruit can also be used as a base for wine. Grapefruit wine uses the juice of several large grapefruits along with sugar, yeast, and other basic ingredients to create a dry, semisweet, or very sweet type of wine.

Homemade wines made from fresh fruit are generally treated as new wine, which means they should be consumed within a year or two at the latest. Like other fresh fruit wines, grapefruit wine requires the addition of water. This is because the grapes used for the production of wine have low levels of acidity and provide considerable natural sugar.

Creating a good dry grapefruit wine suitable to pair with fish, chicken or other light dishes can be done with or without the addition of concentrated grape juice. The version that cuts out the concentrate calls for more sugar and a little more water. Alternatively, the winemaker may add white grape juice concentrate in place of sugar and water. Once the sugar, water and yeast have been dissolved and added to the freshly squeezed grapefruit juice, some clean grapefruit peel and one Campden’s tablet, which is a potassium product used to kill unwanted bacteria , must stay for one night. Then, the pectic enzyme is added and the yeast joins the mixture in another 12 hours.

Over the next 48 hours, more sugar is added to encourage the wine to ferment. After this period of dynamic fermentation, the winemakers remove the skins and the wine is set aside. Once a month for the next five months, the wine must be decanted. This means it is poured into clean bottles, with as much sediment left behind. While grapefruit wine is drinkable after resting for six months, the countdown doesn’t begin until after the fifth and final racking.

Semisweet grapefruit wine follows the same process, with a few additions. Nearly double the amount of sugar is needed to sweeten wine, and many manufacturers further enhance the flavor with chopped white or golden raisins. Another difference is that, after the fifth or sixth racking, the wine needs to rest for about a week and a half to stabilize before the winemaker adds more sugar dissolved in boiling water. Also this wine is best served at least six months after the final racking.

Sweet grapefruit dessert wine follows the basic recipe for semisweet wine with a few differences. More sugar, of course, is added both when the wine is initially bottled and at the end of the preparatory period before it rests for six months. This wine is especially wonderful served with dessert cheese and fresh fruit.

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