Sugar in a fruit wine

[DEMPSEY]

Every recipe I have ever seen about taking fruit like say,blackberry's or Elderberries or such, the recipe always calls for a household sugar addition . Household sugar is 100% fermentable so it will be fully fermented out thus as well as adding the alcohol it will thin out the wine and leave it without body. Has anybody here made a fruit wine without the addition of sugar.

[DEMPSEY]

bumping this one now as its early July and so the fruit seasoning for picking is coming up. Anybody got opinions on this.

[Matt DBrewer]

I think it comes down to the fact a lot of fruit, especially berries have quite low sugar content... grapes have about 18% which is why they are most commonly used and don't need added sugar... apples contain about 13% so you can get away with it in cider, though you don't get near the same abv ... not sure about elderberries but strawberries only have about 6% sugar, so you wouldn't really get a wine type drink after it... the reason elderberries are so popular for fruit wine is they have significant tannins which add body and help balance the strong alcohol content