Enhance Your Wine’s Profile with Food-Grade Chemicals

Making great wine is not an easy thing to do. If it was, everyone would do it themselves! But despite the difficulty, wine making is a rewarding process that results in wine with personalized flavors that bring out the best qualities of the ingredients used to make it. We at Bremer know that wine making isn’t for the faint of heart, which is why we provide commercial wine making ingredients like sugar and other food-grade chemicals to help you make the best wine possible.

How Do Food-Grade Chemicals Affect the Flavor Profile of Wine?

“Food-grade” materials are safe ingredients or chemicals for human consumption. More specifically, food-grade chemicals are additives that are safe to use and consume, and they meet strict purity standards. Food-grade chemicals are widely used in bulk wine making for preservation, flavoring, or to adjust texture or mouthfeel. 

Food-grade chemicals can affect the flavor profile of wine in many ways. Acids can be added to adjust tartness, sourness, or freshness, and some acids might add specific fruity flavors. Tannins, found organically in grape skins and seeds, contribute to the drying sensation in the mouth that’s common in red wines. Sulfites can preserve flavors and prevent oxidation.

Which Food-Grade Chemicals are Best to Use for Wine?

There are many food-grade chemicals that are great choices for wine making. One example is sodium benzoate, which prevents spoilage and unintended changes in texture and pH balance. Commonly added in small amounts, this can be a useful additive to sweet and sparkling wines that benefit from a longer shelf life and finely tuned texture and acidity.  Tartaric acid, organically found in grapes, can also be used in wine production, as it preserves flavor while enhancing sour notes naturally present in some wines and other beverages. Malic acid can impart a green apple-like flavor when added in small amounts. Other food-grade chemicals like citric acid can be used to add or adjust smooth, tart, and sour flavors in wine.

Why Use Food-Grade Chemicals in Wine?

Food-grade chemicals are popular among Bremer’s wine making customers because they add an unmistakable boost in flavor, allow for pinpoint texture adjustments, and have vital acidification and/or preservation properties. Food-grade chemicals like ascorbic acid are also critical for preventing oxidation, an effect that can make wine taste flat. If too much oxidation occurs, your wine may start to taste like vinegar. 

In summary, food-grade chemicals allow for consistency in wine making. Anyone who’s ever made wine knows that there are a million factors that can affect the final product. These variations are difficult to predict and even harder to mask without the use of food-grade chemicals. If you want to ensure that every batch of wine comes out tasting exactly as it should every single time, try using food-grade chemicals.

Why Choose Bremer for Food-Grade Chemicals?

Choosing Bremer for your food-grade chemicals means your customers get to enjoy wine made from premium ingredients, carefully preserved with safe wine additives, and guaranteed to taste exactly as you intend, every time.  Bremer has a long history of supplying bulk sugars and food-grade chemicals to wineries. Our Michigan-harvested beet sugar is already one of our best-selling ingredients to wineries across the country. Our food-grade chemicals are probably used in some of your favorite Michigan wines, too.  For information on the industries we support, products we offer, or our distribution methods, contact us – we’d love to help you.

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Adding Sugar to Wine: The Chaptalization Process

Fall is upon us, and so is the harvesting season. As winemakers prepare for another season of tasty wines, many wonder how they can make this batch of beverages better than their last. A little tweaking of the winemaking process can go a long way, and experts have discovered the value of a key ingredient — sugars and sweeteners. Through a process known as chaptalization, sugar has played a significant role in the quality of wines across the world.

What is Chaptalization?

Put simply, chaptalization is the practice of adding sugar to wine. According to Wine Folly, chaptalization is primarily practiced in the Northern Hemisphere, where the weather is cooler. Grapes are not always optimally ripe in these climates, which means they are sour and acidic without the added sugar. Chaptalization is typically undetectable and ensures the quality of a wine, even if its grapes are harvested in places with unpredictable temperatures.

Why Use Chaptalization in Winemaking?

Contrary to popular belief, the goal of chaptalization is not to make wine sweeter. If a grape is not ripe, it is unable to reach a wine’s required alcohol percentage. When sugar is added prior to fermentation, yeast is able to ferment into alcohol and increase the alcohol content of the wine. In places like Italy or California, where grapes can become too ripe, chaptalization is actually illegal. These areas may instead practice acidification, which involves adding acids such as tartaric acid to lower the pH and increase the acidity of a wine.

Some wine experts frown upon chaptalization, claiming that it negatively affects the taste and quality of wine. The process only impacts the alcohol percentage of wine, but critics debate that — particularly in high-end, expensive bottles — an overly acidic lack of complexity can be tasted. If you’re looking to craft a well-balanced wine with simple quality, however, chaptalization is a great way to do so.

Getting Started With Chaptalization In Wine

The best way to start practicing chaptalization in winemaking is to find a reliable sugar provider near you. By having access to a quality local sugar and sweetener bulk distributor, you won’t risk experiencing the negative effects of a less than satisfactory harvest. The sugar most commonly used in chaptalization is granulated, or white, sugar. This product is often sourced from cane but can come from beets as well — a popular hit in Michigan. In some cases, corn syrup or sugar substitutes are also used in chaptalization. These products can be purchased in bulk, so your winery is always stocked with the ingredients you need.

For winemakers battling finicky weather that tampers with harvest season, chaptalization still gives you the perfect wine — and Bremer has the ingredients to help you get there. Bremer Authentic Ingredients started as Bremer Sugar & Distributing in 1946 and has been supplying Michigan and Northern Indiana with quality bulk sugars and sweeteners ever since. Get in touch with us for all of your chaptalization needs.

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