[LottyLouis]

I'm a bit new to this wine-making milarky - and I've been reading about adding concentrate to country wines to add 'body'. I don't mean making wine exclusively with fruit juice. I'm not sure when to add it - before fermentation starts? Also - would the addition of concentrate mean that I've got more sugar in there? Should I reduce the amount of sugar - if so, by how much? Advice please. Many thanks. 

[New shoot]

I haven't used concentrate because I can't buy it easily locally and it is expensive mail order because of the weight.  My tried and trusted (and admittedly very old) country wine book says you use it when you have an ingredient where to use enough to make the wine will make it too strong tasting e.g. blackcurrant or an ingredient that has flavour, but not enough body e.g. rose petal.

The concentrate lets you make a full bodied wine with a more complex flavour, but the author says banana, sultanas and raisins also do the same.  In all the recipes, it goes in with the fruit or other ingredients at the start of fermentation.

The rose petal wine recipe uses either 500g grape concentrate or 500g chopped sultanas.

It sounds like it is only needed with certain kinds of wine and can be substituted with other easily obtained ingredients if you want.  I hope that helps 

[AnnieB]

You normally just add it at the start, swap out a little of the water for the concentrate.
Possibly easier is to get a litre of grape juice from whatever supermarket and put that in then make up the volume with water. I avoid the longlife ones as I guess they have an assortment of preserves in them, I tend to do this rather then go and find a concentrate.

Use a hydrometer to get the starting specific gravity right.

You can then use other juices instead of grape, however apple tends to remain present as apple so if you are making a light wine it is probably best to give that one a miss. You likely do not want a pear wine to smell a bit like cider. I did a pineapple wine and used pear juice and grape juice, a litre of each, if I recall. Being honest I think one of the juices had been sat in the fridge and needed to be used.

As mentioned you can add alternative fruits to accomplish the same.