Blackberry wine (ala red grape wine)

My goal last year was the same. I got pretty good results with the following.

For 5 gallons:

This year I'll add more welches concentrate. My goal with all the additional fruits was to build complexity of taste. The taste of the blackberry was still dominant. In fact we can;t taste anything but the blacberrys and the oak. I can;t remember how much water I added if any. I'm not near my records.

Watch your acidity. Not exactly what you are wanting to do but I have done pretty good making a medium bodied, dry blackberry wine using 6 lbs of blackberries in a gallon. It might stand up to 7 or 8 lbs. A lot of recipes call for 3-5 lbs and you are right, they come out thin. But if you use 100% blackberries you are going to have to do some sort of acid reduction.

Ray

I think it depends on the berries; here in Oregon, blackberry heaven, I get a good, complex, medium-bodied wine with a deep rich color out of 4 lbs of blackberries per gallon (no acid necessary).

Kate

You'll need to add sugar if you want an abv typical of a grape wine. If you're using pure juice and not adding water, you'd need around 13 lbs per US gallon of fruit (though that is highly dependent on the berries and extraction method used).

It is certainly worth undertaking. I'd recommend using very ripe berries, pure juice (though bare in mind the acidity), and potentially some added tannin for body.

Ben

Improved Winemaking