I'll bet they have turned to bird food by now. Linda C

If I am making a meat sauce, I start with some pork...like a chop or a small pork steak brown it in a little olive oil a Dutch oven, as its browning I chop a good big onion, or 2 smaller ones and a green pepper, Add the veggies to the pot along with 3 to 5 cloves of garlic, depending on how big the cloves are. When the onion has softened, add: 3 24 oz cans of good whole Italian plum tomatoes and 3 6 oz cans of Contadina tomato paste ( other brands are bitter!) Fill one of the tomato paste cans with a dry red wine and add to the pot, and fill the other 2 cans with water and add that to the pot. Add: A handful of fresh basil....about 1/4 cup chopped, and A handful of flat leaf parsley about 1/4 cup chopped, and 2 T fresh oregano leaves....and Fresh ground pepper, about 3/4 of a teaspoon....about 6 grinds of my Greek mill. And" 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese. For this it really isn't necessary to use the "good stuff" because what you want from the cheese is the buffering the acidity of the tomatoes. Add the good stuff to each plate as you serve it. while the sauce is simmering...VERY slowly... make meatballs to put into it....I bake the meatballs and add them to the sauce pot, and simmer another hour. I also make a simple pomo d'oro sauce using fresh tomatoes. I sautee a big onion and half a green pepper in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, add a couple of cloves of chopped garlic and about 2 quarts of peeled and cut up fresh tomatoes, a small handful of fresh basil and another of chopped parsley.....cook at a fairly fast boil until thick enough for you about 20 minutes. I use a big fry pan for this....salt to taste....it will take a fair amount as you have not used any canned products nor cheese. Linda C

Without seeing the recipe, it's a little tough to tell. A couple of things though; How long are you waiting after the wine is finished before you are tasting? Wines can take a few months to mellow out some of the harsh alcohol taste. Some of the fruits you mention may not contain the amount of acid necessary to give the wines sufficient body and when the wines are thin, the hot taste is accentuated. If you can spare some, take a half glass or so of the wine and add a drop of lemon juice, swirl to mix and see if it makes a difference. It could just be that there isn't enough fruit in the recipe (or too much sugar) that there is enough flavor / non-fermentables left when the yeast is done working (assuming you're using a decent wine yeast).

IAN75, Every one has a recipe to make homemade wine, and some even makes drinkable? wine, but there is nothing to equal the right way to do it..Rubber gloves and balloons and yes... even condoms, is not a sufficent air lock. Yes, you need to use wine yeast. I had a friend of mine that used self rising corn meal, "well it's got yeast in it"!! I asked him how the white swollen grit looking stuff tasted with the grapes he wasted... A mold on the wine does not mean you have lost the batch..Some fruits have a downright ugly 'must' that rises to the top of the container, that will dissolve in the future if you use a tested recipe. and finally... Only you can tell if you have made a time bomb.. I started the same way you did about twenty five years ago and actually thought I had made good wine, until I started, doing it the right way. MY advise to you is to GOOGLE the name JACK KELLER, WINE..And read the article . it will tell you what you need and how to do it...Good luck in the future.