Banana wine

[Borderers1951]

Encouraged by my wife, who prefers sweet to dry wines, I have recently started some banana wine.  She bought a quantity of bananas somewhat past their best and gave them to me to get on with the job.  The first couple of days were not encouraging (see the photos), but now the stuff is strained off and in demijohns, it's looking better.

Anyone else tried this wine?

[squeezyjohn]

Hi there,

I've made banana wine a couple of times.  Whether it turns out sweet or dry depends very much on your recipe (in terms of sugar concentration at the beginning) and how the fermentation goes.  Fully fermented banana wine doesn't have much of a flavour at all and you certainly can't taste much banana in there, it does tend to make a rather strong wine with a nice thick mouth-feel which along with its neutral flavour makes it great for blending with other home-made thinner wines or adding a home-made fruit syrup to make a sweeter aperatif like kir or framboise.

[hartshay]

Banana is pretty boring as a single ingredient but it does lift other wines if blended ... I especially like them in Elderberry.

[Beersmith]

I hope it turns out well.

As a backup, why not get along to your local Italian deli and hunt out a bottle of Marsala All Uovo. Based on Marsala wine it is sweetened, fortified and flavoured with various other aromatic ingredients, often vanilla but other variations like almond, cinnamon or even citrus.

Many lovers of sweet wine adore it. I don't often drink it myself. It is a little too sweet for my taste, although it goes well with sweet desserts. It makes a brilliant addition to some Italian recipes like Tiramisu.

PS Be careful not to  get simple Marsala, which is really a sherry variant.

[Borderers1951]

Well, the banana wine turned out well.  My wife enjoys it and my daughter and her husband took a few bottles back after their New Year visit.  It seems that some evening guests also enjoyed it and had to leave their cars while they took a taxi home.  It's too sweet for me but it does have some fans.