Blackberry + What Fruit. Noobie Query

Steve,

The two I have experience of are banana and elderberry. I used blackberries and banana in a port style wine successfuly. The colour was tawny, because blackberries lose their colour.

I did a blackberry and elderberry last summer. It seemed good last time I tested it. It is ready to bottle now - when I find time!

I've only just made blackberry straight, but I have combined rhubarb with a lot of other things like strawberry, blueberry, watermelon etc. - anyway, rhubarb usually yields to the other fruit(s) that you combine it with. So I don't know how much help rhubarb would be for you. I guess it depends on what you're trying to do.... Last year, I made this one gallon batch with all the misc. frozen fruit I had leftover in the freezer strawberry, blueberry, and rhubarb. I'm still waiting for it to mature, but my suspicion is that it will taste more like a strawberry wine with blueberry overtones, and I won't taste the rhubarb at all. Darlene

I have about 20 pounds of blackberries, picked this summer and in the freezer now. Would like to make a sweet blackberry wine. I made a batch about 2 years ago and it turned out too dry-- add a little sugar to the glass and the blackberry flavor comes back and tastes fine. It's also great for wine coolers but not drinking as is. I purchased a different yeast (Lalvin K1-V1116) this time that should die out about 12-14% alcohol (I hope) so hoping I'll get it right. Do you have a recipe for a sweet blackberry wine you can share? Am I on the right track with the different yeast?

There is really no such thing as a too dry wine. Well maybe there is but it is a fault that is easily corrected. Just stabilize and sweeten with sugar or honey. You may have to adjust the acidity as well but all that is done to taste so it is easy. But you are absolutely correct about the flavor of blackberry wine. Dry, it is a nice red wine. Add a little sugar and the blackberries clime right out of the glass!

Ray

I've seen the 12-14% info before about this yeast, but I've also seen

Check out this chart for Lalvin yeasts:

Pp

Dave, I think you will be further ahead to ferment to dryness, clarify and stabilize the wine and then sweeten before bottling. Be sure to sulphite and then add Potassium Sorbate together at the time of sweetening. It is much easier to clarify and stabilize a wine that is dry than one that is off dry and slowly fermenting away. Just my opinion of course.HTH

I use Lalvin K1-V1116 when I want to make a really strong wine. I have used it on several batches and have achieved up to 18%. In the right conditions it may even go to 20%

I would not expect this to stop at 12-14 percent. If you are looking for a sweet wine the best way is to ferment it dry then add sorbate and sulfite to stabilize, then sweeten to taste. I'd wait a day or so after the sorbate, may not be necessary though to wait. So add enough sugar to the must to bring the specific gravity to somewhere around 1090 and about 13 or so percent potential alcohol and ferment it dry, sorbate, sulfite, and sweeten to taste.

David

Thanks to all for the thoughts, sounds like the first batch wasn't so far off after all! Will give the stabilization and sweeten to taste approach a try, thanks again.