I'm pretty sure somewhere a while back I mentioned that I was making fake fruit wine by soaking fruit in white wine for a few weeks.
I can't find the post. Well, didn't look too hard.
Anyhow, I am enjoying the fruits of my, um, labour and I have to say overall, I'm impressed.
I'll confess at the start I am not a wine snob. I like fruity, sweet things. If you buy wines at auction and cellar them for 20 years, this is not for you.
I made two batches. A strawberry and a raspberry. Dumped clean fruit in a gallon jar and poured in two litres of Royal White Medium Dry. Cheap stuff in a plastic bottle. Save that bottle!
On its own I find this wine too sweet to drink. But since fruit is often tart, I figured it would even out in the end.
THe strawberry batch turned out very sour! The berries I used were especially sour berries and I have to sweeten the wine glass by glass before I can drink it. I use corn syrup, dissolves easier than sugar. But you can taste those strawberries and the smell is divine!
The raspberries I just strained out tonight after more than 2 weeks of soaking. This batch does not need to be sweetened. The berries were ripe and loaded with flavour, they gave it all up to the wine. THis shtuff is fabyoulush.
I want to try this with apricots later in the season. A pint or two of fruit is plenty for two litres of wine.
I froze a few baggies of berries. I do not like to use thawed berries in cooking since I think they get a weird texture that I don't like. But tossing them in a jar of wine later in the year will be a good use for them.
Note to wine fakers: two litres of wine plus fruit will yield, after straining, MORE than two litres. You will be forced to drink the wine that won't fit back into the bottle. Darn. I have to go lay down now.
I can't find the post. Well, didn't look too hard.
Anyhow, I am enjoying the fruits of my, um, labour and I have to say overall, I'm impressed.
I'll confess at the start I am not a wine snob. I like fruity, sweet things. If you buy wines at auction and cellar them for 20 years, this is not for you.
I made two batches. A strawberry and a raspberry. Dumped clean fruit in a gallon jar and poured in two litres of Royal White Medium Dry. Cheap stuff in a plastic bottle. Save that bottle!
On its own I find this wine too sweet to drink. But since fruit is often tart, I figured it would even out in the end.
THe strawberry batch turned out very sour! The berries I used were especially sour berries and I have to sweeten the wine glass by glass before I can drink it. I use corn syrup, dissolves easier than sugar. But you can taste those strawberries and the smell is divine!
The raspberries I just strained out tonight after more than 2 weeks of soaking. This batch does not need to be sweetened. The berries were ripe and loaded with flavour, they gave it all up to the wine. THis shtuff is fabyoulush.
I want to try this with apricots later in the season. A pint or two of fruit is plenty for two litres of wine.
I froze a few baggies of berries. I do not like to use thawed berries in cooking since I think they get a weird texture that I don't like. But tossing them in a jar of wine later in the year will be a good use for them.
Note to wine fakers: two litres of wine plus fruit will yield, after straining, MORE than two litres. You will be forced to drink the wine that won't fit back into the bottle. Darn. I have to go lay down now.
Last edited by uno on Sat Jul 27, 2013 11:48 am; edited 1 time in total
, in a sense, wine with lots of berries, or little berries!! We are going to be over done with black elderberries this year. One of our trees that I did not prune, well only slightly last year, is going to have so many berries on it that it kind of scares me. I do wonder if the big shrub will actually be able to hold it. I never thought that a tree could have so many umbrels of berries on it. When they begin to ripen, which will be in another month or so, pictures will home, cause it is a gob stopper!! Some lady stopped in to our home about a week ago and asked my Son-in-Law if she could pick some of the black elderberry flowers that were growing on the shrubs in the front yard, they are all over our property here, well in Daughter's yard and in our area too. She lives in the Revelstoke area. She is a naturalpath (or something like that) and uses the flowers at an early stage, when opened to a certain point for many homeopathic remedies, particularly for use in excema and her son. I don't know much about the medical points of black elderberry (sambucus nigri), but I know the flowers are used in making tisanes. I wish I would have been there, cause I would have probed her mind. SIL told her he would cut her some off, which he did, and she was thrilled. Evidently Revelstoke's elderberry trees are past the flowering stage, and we still have some that have flower umbrels. What a lovely thing. I am going to make black elderberry sangria too. Haven't made wine from them yet, but I have heard often enough that the berries need to be heated/cooked, call it what you will, as there is potential for digestive upset from the berries if not. But wonder if wine made using the berry would annul that potential for upset. I don't know, haven't had any first hand knowledge of that yet. Have a most awesome day, CynthiaM.