Why Not?

They do; you just haven't been paying attention. :-)

There are quite a few wineries that make wine from sour cherries, and it is *outstanding* -- St. Julian is one of my favorite brands.

I've also seen commercial wine made from apples, blackberries (another one of my favorites), strawberries, sweet cherries, and plums.

I've looked through wine stores and large supermarkets with large wine sections and never seen anything like that. Where is it that you buy such things?

Wine stores and large supermarkets with large wine sections. ;-)

Tom's IP address puts him somewhere in Los Angeles, so I doubt that's actually much use to him...

Because the laws of supply and demand, there is very little demand for fruit wines so almost nothing is commercially available. Yes, I have had some excellent fruits from home wine makers so I have nothing against fruit wines. If you have a nut every month of several thousands dollars you have to meet, you sell what meets that nut, unfortunately fruit wines aren't going to crack the nut. I use to buy cases of some fantastic Olallieberry wine in Santa Barbara at the Santa Barbara Winery (they also sold some other great fruit wines), then they kissed fruit wines goodbye and only sold "Varietal Wines" as I was informed by a guy behind the counter with his nose in the air. If he was in front of the counter I would have kicked him in the ass, the little prick.

I realised he was over the pond, but assumed, perhaps incorrectly, he was interested in general. They do sell online and, although I didn't check, thought they might either ship overseas or have useful contacts there.

Nonsense.

True, there isn't nearly as much fruit wine available as grape wine, but to describe the availability of commercial fruit wines as "almost nothing" is clearly false.

Although the selection is smaller, they *are* available, and readily available.

You just haven't been paying attention.

You are right I went into the market and found a great strawberry wine from a place called Boone's Farm and a wonderful apple wine from Annie Green Springs

Next time, visit a grocery store where the majority of the customers are

Most of the grocery stores I shop at don't carry Boone's Farm. And I don't even remember the last time I saw a bottle of Annie Green Springs.

Indianapolis isn't exactly the heart of wine country, or fruit country, either, yet I have *no* trouble finding sour cherry wine, mead, blackberry wine -- and I don't mean Manischewitz -- apple wine, *real* strawberry wine, even mango wine (!) in the grocery stores here. Most of the liquor stores and wine shops have even better selections.

I repeat: if you can't find fruit wines, especially if you can't find them at wine or liquor shops, you just aren't paying attention.

Relax Doug, I was just screwing with your head. I haven't seen a bottle of Boone's Farm or Annie Green Spring in over 30 years.

I live in El Dorado County in Northern California,(goes from Sacramento to Tahoe - a long shitty gold country county, but hey, They use to hang someone everyday here in the 1850's, we still have a dummy hanging on main street, for tourist, in "Old HangTown" Placerville, weird, yeah I know). BTW, gold is still here I have found a few nuggets in the creek at the bottom of my property.

There are a little over 70 wineries here and not one makes a fruit wine. You know I take that back, I think there is an apple farm that makes an apple wine, but not really a winery. And there are just over a 1000 wineries in California and I am guessing there may be only one or two that make a fruit wine unless they are a winery that specializes in Fruit Wines. I am told some do exit here.

BESIDES, I am not looking for any fruit wines, I was just answering the OP question. I rarely buy wine when I keep a constant 200 to 400 gallons of Varietal wines in my "cellar".

Yesterday, I was out in a vineyard, just down the street from me, inspecting some cabernet and merlot. Cab was very nice, but the Merlot is going to be spotty. If the dam rain doesn't screw things up, I should be getting several hundreds of grapes this coming weekend. Plus I have my own vineyard of 60 Barbera Vines which should give me another 500-600 pounds. Basically, I stay fairly well set with all the wine I can drink.

Oh, Had our wine club "social" this weekend. I have about 70 or 80 pictures to post in the gallery, So far have posted about 24. I am there, However, lol

I am Helaman, look under Photo Gallery, first category

Being in the Great Plains area of the country (Omaha NE) vineyards are obviously not as numerous as California, although we do have some nice vineyards throughout the state. Out here fruit tends to be more abundant then grapes, so we tend to see regional wineries producing some really nice fruit wines.

One to note is Prairie Berry Winery in the heart of the Black Hills is South Dakota.

They have a nice mix of grape and fruit wines of all types; Chokecherries, honey, raspberry, plum, apple, pear and even pumpkin.. Our favorite is the Red Ass Rhubarb (Of which I am trying to copy - so far unsuccessfully)

I guess this is the wine that has really kick started my desire to learn how to make wine, especially with all of the availability of local fruits.

-Tyler

There a couple of people in our wine club who are from back east. They swear by Rhubarb wine. I might have to order some just to taste it for myself.

I started raising Bees this year, in order to get enough honey to make Mead. I have had some excellent Mead wine and would like to duplicate it. That reminds me, there was a Winery along the Coast down South making a mead wine along with the standard stuff. They made an excellent Mead, can't remember the name now...Santa 'something' winery, but there are a lot of wineries called Santa Something along the coast.

I planted some Elberberry plants long ago and have made wine with it. Letting it go to dryness is not good idea, tasted funky, had to add a bunch of sugar to make it a sweet wine. It is too much worked to harvest them takes hours cleaning the little berrys so haven't made any in a number years. It a shame not to use them for something as I planted enough plants to produce several pounds of fruit. Well, the birds enjoy them.

The problem is the cost. The wine here is expensive enough without buying it overseas and shipping it here.

replying to Tycarnell, Prairie Berry Winery wrote: Thanks for mentioning us, Tyler! Good luck with the winemaking! Keep experimenting--you never know when you'll wind up with something you like better.

We love to experiment with fruit wines, and our winemaker is certainly not afraid to try something new. One of our fan-favorite fall wines is Pumpkin Bog, a cranberry/pumpkin wine. We have made wine out of rose hips, buffaloberries, currants, strawberries, raspberries, wild plums--pretty much anything we can find in plentiful supply. Red Ass Rhubarb is our biggest seller and has won the most awards for us, but we are getting quite a following for our South Dakota-grown grapes as well. They are completely different from the traditional varietals, but they take the heat and the cold and produce some fantastic (and award-winning) wine. We also make zinfandel, Merlot, cab, Concord, chardonnay and several other varietals. We do have to get those grapes from other regions, that don't see 100+ heat and -40 cold, but we like to have a well-rounded offering. We do sell our wine online, and can ship to quite a few states.

Great question, and thanks for including us in the discussion!