[a10t2]

This is a cross-post from the NB forums. My apologies for the inherent tackiness.

I have a fair amount of experience with brewing, but I've never made wine. Not that I dislike it; I just don't drink enough wine for it to be worthwhile. Over the past few days, though, I've been experimenting with blending some wines and beers and it's gotten me thinking about trying something like that on my own. I'm thinking about using some grape juice for a secondary fermentation in a beer, followed by some oak aging. And it would make my life a lot easier if I could get a reasonable approximation of the wine character without having to do a separate wine yeast fermentation.

From what I've read, it sounds like wine yeasts have a pretty small flavor impact, and most of the flavor comes from the grapes and/or oak aging. Is that a fair generalization?

Oh, and are there any other combinations people have tried? My favorites so far have been merlot in an RIS and reisling in a hefeweizen.

[mmclean]

You may want to try a Braggot.

When I try to brew a beer it will be a Braggot.

[tschmidlin]

Yeah, but a braggot is like mead and beer, not wine and beer.  If you intend to brew a whole batch of wine/beer all together you can buy a wine kit and use some of the juice and freeze the rest for another batch or two.  Or you can make the wine separately and blend it to taste.  Depending on where you live, you can order a smaller quantity of grapes and do a batch, that works as well.

The wine yeasts I've used (in cider) give some character to the end product, but I don't have a lot of experience with them so YMMV.

[hopfenundmalz]

In  wines, most flavor comes from the grapes, that is why they have different wine regions, terroir, and vintages.  Some good wines never touch oak. 

[stlaleman]

While not a wine maker, I do make wine, cider and perry (all sort of wines?). Do not discount the flavor additions from the yeast. These can and do alter the flavors as much as beer yeasts do. It wasn't just the region's grapes, but the yeast that lived on the grapes that made areas famous. If you want a blend of wine and beer, blend wine and beer, if you want fruit beer, make fruit beer, but it won't be the same.
That being said, good luck!

[euge]

No expert and no experience with wines other than cider and mead.

I get wines' "vinous" character off of some Belgian strains, which to me is somewhat phenolic.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenolic_compounds_in_wine

[tschmidlin]

You could also try fermenting your concoction with a wine strain, or a mixture of strains to get some of the character you want.  It would be tough because you might want different fermentation temps, but it would be an interesting experiment.  Or make a gallon of kit wine, four gallons of beer, and blend them in the keg.  Or just dump a bottle of wine in at kegging time.