Blackberry Wine recipes

check back to the July 21st thread blackberry wine question.. for my recipe if you can't see it I will post again.

You will need 20K for a 20 L batch.

cheers Marv

I am having a go at 100% (okay, 90%) blackberry wine. I bought 24 lbs of frozen marionberries from Trader Joe's, and when thawed and fermented at SG

1.110 (Yikes!), they yielded 8.25 liters of beautiful wine. I diluted it with water by 10% to bring the alcohol down to about 13.5% and the acid with it. I am oaking half to make a dry, "big" red - and sweetening the other half to make a fruity dessert wine. It is lovely stuff. I'm drinking a coffee-filtered glass from the carboy bottom right now after having just racked it. (Winemaker's privilege!)

I thawed the berries along with added sugar, sulfite, and pectic enzyme over the course of 3 days - essentially a 3 day cold maceration prior to fermentation. Following that, I pressed the must with my basket press and proceeded with fermentation in a 3 gallon carboy. I realized that I had overshot the SG and would end up with a 15% PA doozy of a wine... so I planned my first racking accordingly. I filled two gallon jugs each with

375mL water, which is 10% of the jug volume, then racked to both jugs. The resulting wine is reduced by 10% in PA (15 to 13.5%) and in acid. I also had 2 x 750mL bottles in overage for topping, which I left undiluted.

I don't work with recipes per se, so I can't give you one. The tannin in blackberries seems to be adequate though, so I wouldn't (and didn't) add any. The acid is substantial if you are not doing ML. If you do, word is that it will carry the wine over the edge into flat territory - as blackberries are mostly malic acid. So I chose to see how the acid would end up, and finish to balance by sweetening if necessary. As luck would have it, the unintentional over-sugaring was a blessing in disguise because I could dilute the acid without killing the alcohol. I used Lalvin Bourgovin yeast on this batch.

Sorry for the ramble... good luck with your wine.

Roger Quinta do Placer

I just scored 2.5lb packs of frozen organic blackberries from Costco for real cheap(just over $6 each). I figured each would make a gallon. I think I will thaw them, add enough water to make one gallon to each 2.5lbs of berries. balance acid to .6 TA and sugar to a SG of 1.08~1.09. Ferment with pulp for a few days then strain and finish fermentation. Slightly sweeten if necessary at bottling.

Any recommendations for a yeast?

I would like comments on my strategy. I have done this before and like the results, but am always looking for improvements.

for most fruit wines, I enjoy using the Cotes Des Blanc,

Rick

in article snipped-for-privacy@news.imagenisp.com, islander at snipped-for-privacy@techie.com wrote on 6/8/04 2:39 am:

Thanks. Will have a look at it. Shouldn't be too hard to get a good amount. Where we take the dog for a walk there are loads of them.In the past three days we picked 9, 12, and the 22lbs and thats without even trying. Made bramble jelly with the few first lots, but there will be another lot ready by now.

Nikki

in article aiDQc.72$ snipped-for-privacy@news.uswest.net, Mike at snipped-for-privacy@mcnabs.com wrote on 6/8/04 4:54 am:

Never had to buy blackberries. There are loads of them here in England just growing everywhere they can. Where we take the dog is a bit of an open space/nature reserve and the paths have bramble bushes along side them. Its such a shame to see so many wasted each year. I'll have to get the other frezzer plugged in somewhere so I can freeze some.

The blackberries are hardly wasted if they are left to supply the (ever decreasing) wildlife with a healthy supply of food. After all, they need it more than you or I. On a more positive note, has anybody ever tried making a pure blackberry wine? I made five gallons of the stuff last year, only adding sugar to raise the alcohol to 11-12% and after only a year of ageing in the barrel it tastes seriously good, if still a little harsh. I really recommend it. I know, I know, I am contradicting myself big style but there was a HUGE crop last year so I hardly damaged the numbers of blackberries at all. Please do try it!

$6 for 2.5 lbs sounds like a good deal but just a heads up. I have made dewberry (a close relative to blackberry) wine several times and with several recipes. I have found that anything less than 5 lbs in a gallon and it comes out weak with low boddy. 6 lbs is what I have standardized one. You might visit Jack's site for a number of recipes and note what he suggests.

Ray

You are right, I looked back at my past wines. I need to use 4 lbs minimum per gallon.

Anyone have a opinion on just fermenting the juice without any pulp?

If you mean pressing the fruit and using the juice form 5-6 lbs of berries for each gallon, I have not seen recipies for that and I have not tried it. If you mean using pure juice like grapes, there are those who suggest this but again I have not tried it. Be careful of your acidity if you do. You might also want to read Jack's recent wine blog concerning using too much fruit. See the address below

I am thinking of 4-5 lbs of berries to a gallon. My thoughts are that I could eliminate some of the "bite" that the skins and seeds add and maybe have a wine that is drinkable sooner.

Even as we speak, I have a batch bottled & aging, and another batch aging in a carboy. We don't have them around here, so I have to settle for a sale on frozen blackberries at my local grocery store. Darlene

Has anyone tried this? I would love to here the results.

Many times. See

and

What is the question?

Jack Keller, The Winemaking Home Page

If you mean using juice only (juice fermenting) as opposed to pulp fermenting, that does tend to reduce extract (including, for e.g., harsh seed phenols) so that will result in less "bite".

If you mean using pure (100%) juice without diluting it (as Ray mentioned), there are a number of winemakers who have done this and found the results favourable (including with blackberry). In reference to Jack's recent wine blog entry, the balance and flavour concentration issue is one at the heart of the entire debate. I continue to disagree with his stance on this issue, I believe a truely balanced wine (flavour to body to acidity to alcohol to etc) will not be overpowering in terms of flavour (assuming the taster actually enjoys strong flavours). (Actually, Jack even reported in rcw some time ago finding favourable results with a 100% blackberry wine he made.)

Ben

I was thinking about using 4-5 LBs of berries to each gallon of wine. That would mean I would add water to the juice to get the desired amount. I am thinking about not fermenting with the pulp to reduce the "bite". What will this do to the final product? I am sure the wine will loose some flavors, but to what extent?

Whether you will significanly loose flavours when juice fermenting (as opposed to pulp fermenting) is a debatable issue, and of course it depends on the pressing method anyway. Really, the amount of suspended solids in the must can play a more important role in terms of flavour. In any case, juice fermenting *tends* to result in wines with less phenolic extract (lower tannin, less seed character, etc) and potentially slightly lower acidity.

But you've identified the key issue: to what extent? Whether the difference is significant will depend very much on your juice extraction method. For example, if you simply press and use free run juice you'll get a much lighter, less extracted wine than if you use a food processor to mash the fruit and subsequently strain the juice from that pulp. For your purposes of reducing "bite" (by which I assume you mean high tannin/acidity) I would suggest being gentle on the fruit (i.e., no harsh crushing/pressing techniques). If you are concerned about loss of flavour, a cold maceration might be a good idea. Ben

4-5 lbs of berries will make a wine that is slightly on the light bodied side. If you only use the juice it will probably be even lighter. Maybe that is what you wnat. Nothing wrong with light bodied wine in the right situation.

Ray

I still have two bottles left and am saving them for a special occasion. I wish I had another case.

On the other hand, I made several batches of blackberry in 2002 -- still experimenting to identify the boundaries. The second batch I made that year used 8 pounds of berries per gallon, 2-day cold maceration, pressing, and fermentation. TA, pH and tannins were fine. This wine simply had WAY too much flavor dry, but smoothed out at

1.012 RS. Still, I corked 5 bottles dry and 20 bottles sweet just to have both on hand.

I think I had some very ripe (possibly OVER-ripe) berries. Everyone who has tasted it dry has commented on the flavor -- it is that strong (stronger even than the pure juice batch). Obviously, it was a balance problem and I corrected it, but I'm not sure every novice out there would have recognized that or known what to do to make it right. They would have tasted it, made a face, and cut back the next time. Either way (correcting the problem or cutting back and making a "safe" wine) would have been right.

The nice thing (for me) about blackberries is that I have SO MUCH of them that I can afford to tinker. Even a bad batch is worth keeping....

Jack Keller, The Winemaking Home Page