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harveyc · 06-29-2010, 05:06 PM

Thought I'd share this bit of exciting news!

Quote:

Pink-Fleshed Dragon Fruit Wine wins Best of California Award!

Hello Rare Fruit Growers!

My friends and I have been busy in our last year as amateur wine makers. So I’ve had many of my rare fruit wines submitted and rated at the 2010 California State Fair Home Wine Competition, and hope to encourage some of you to make award winning wines out of the abundance of fruits from your yard, containers, or land. Fruit Wine Making 101 will be my topic at this year’s Festival of Fruit to be held in Pomona, California hosted by the Los Angeles Chapter of CRFG.

At last year’s FOF held in Santa Rosa, Ed Valdivia invited me to give a talk about Fruit Wine Making and also to donate some wines for tasting at this year’s FOF. Since we will be featuring Pitahaya, I took up the challenge of Ed to turn the fruits into wine. Ed sent me about 100 lbs of his premium Pitahaya fruits. It was my first attempt to make Pitahaya wine, and knowing how expensive these fruits are, I carefully researched on the nutrient contents of these fruits and designed various wine making processes and recipe trials to find out the best way to turn these rare fruits into excellent wine, and submit them at this year’s California State Fair Home Wine Competition for evaluation and perhaps learn how they should be improved. But it paid off early and the results blew me away! I was ecstatic to learn that two of the Pitahaya wines got double gold medals with a rating of 99 points each, and one of them won the Best of California Special Award. The Best of California Special Award is determined by comparing all the gold and double gold medal wines within a specific class category of wine.

I primarily sorted the Pitahaya cultivars according to flesh colors and so I have White-Fleshed, Pink-Fleshed, Red-Fleshed and Magenta-Fleshed Pitahaya fruits, and the same colors were imparted into the wine. White fleshed pitahaya produced wines similar in color to Chardonnay, the Pink Fleshed Pitahayas produced wine with color similar to Zinfandel blush wine, the red fleshed Pitahaya produced wine that is similar to red grapes although not as dark, and the Magenta fleshed pitahaya produced the most beautiful wine color I ever saw and have never seen in any of the grape wines: a magenta colored wine. Personally, I like the magenta colored pitahaya wine the best.

The wine made from Pink-fleshed Pitahaya won the Best Of California award, in the Fruit Wine and Other Blend category. The White-Fleshed Pitahaya Wine came in very close, as it got 99 points rating. The rest of the Pitahaya wine recipes got Silver Medals, rated at 90-91 points.

We will have all the award winning Pitahaya wines available for tasting at FOF, but in limited numbers because I used about 3 lbs of fruit per bottle of this wine, and so 100 lbs of fruit is really not much wine for a big group. I will also bring some my other award winning wines for tasting to supplement the offering. The wines will be limited amounts of each type, might just be one to two bottles only, so it is first come, first served, until gone. I will also open a bottle of the most difficult wine I ever made, only for those with courage to taste it: The Durian Wine. I only made 4 bottles, and so not enough samples for competitions, instead have been enjoying it myself with other friends, and so this is the last bottle promised. The Cashew Apple wine which I started earlier this month might make it to the tasting table, thanks to Dr. Prasad Mummanemi who shipped me freshly pressed Cashew apple juices directly from Panama to turn it into wine, and I will be excited to taste this another new wine together with you. To date, I have made roughly a little more than 325 different kinds of wines, but my target is about 500 kinds of fruit wines because I maintain that many fruit types in my yard, still some ways to go.

Here’s the summary of the awards won at the 2010 California State Fair Home Wine Competition and other state fair competitions, together with my other fellow winemakers who are also members of CRFG. We submitted 210 different kinds of wines this time at the State Fair, as this is our last entry into these types of competitions. And the results:

2010 California State Fair Wine Competition

2 Best of California Awards:

Pink-Fleshed Dragon Fruit – Fruit/Other Blend Class

Lisbon Lemon – Seeded Fruit Wine Class

12 Double Gold Medals:

Blueberry-Merlot, Cherry – Pomegranate, Dragon Fruit Pink Fleshed, Dragon Fruit White Fleshed, Elderberry, Fuyu Persimmon Sherry, Hibiscus Petals, Jasmine Petals & White Grapes, Kiwi, Lisbon Lemon, Pineapple, Purple Tomatillo Sherry

8 Gold Medals

Bearss Lime & Blossoms, Cranberry, Ginger Lemongrass, Hibiscus-Cranberry, Improved Meyer Lemon, Lemongrass, Mango-Calamondin, Maple Sap

83 Silver Medals, 53 Bronzes and 36 Honorable Mentions

I’ll mention only a few rare wines that I made in limited amounts and was surprised that they got nice awards: California Gold Banana, Blood Oranges, Yuzu-Sudachi and almost all the other citruses, Tropical Pink Guava, Jackfruit, Ataulfo Mango, almost all of the stone fruit wines such as Pluots (Flavor Queen, Dapple Dandy, Flavorosa), plums and peaches, almost all the other berries, and even vegetables such as Chillacallote Squash, Lemongrass (most of you are going to love this) and Bitter Melon (a big challenge wine and so happy that it got Silver!). The only wine that did not do well for us is the watermelon.

Other smaller competitions

2010 San Joaquin County Fair Wine Competition

Special Awards: Best of Show Fruit/Exotic wine

Best of Class Fruit/Exotic

2nd in Class Fruit/Exotic

3rd in Class Fruit/Exotic

Best Of Class Chardonnay

Medal Awards: 2 double golds, 1 gold, 24 silvers, 8 bronzes, 3 Honorable Mentions

2009 Tulare County Fair Wine Competition

Special Awards*: Best of Show Fruit/Exotic wine, 2nd Place Chardonnay, 3rd Place Zinfandel, 3rd Place Merlot - Cabernet Sauvignon Blend

*competition is only for special awards and no medal ranking

2009 California State Fair Wine Competition

Medal Awards: 4 double golds, 16 silvers, 5 bronzes, 5 Honorable Mention

I will reveal some tips in making award winning wines at the Festival of Fruit. So be there and don’t miss out on what might be the last opportunity of tasting many of my home-made fruit wines.

Respectfully,

Joe Real