Blackberry Wine
Source of Recipe
neophytesg@aol.com
Recipe Introduction
This wine is almost port-like -- 12+%abv, semisweet, full-bodied, deep blood-red, rich tasting with no tannin aftertaste; makes 3 gallons.
List of Ingredients
6lb Blackberries
2.5lb Sugar
1/4tsp Pectic Enzyme
Cote de Blanc yeast
Water (non-chlorinated) as needed
Campden tablet (optional)Recipe
The 6lbs/gallon of blackberries is definitely on the upper end of the scale with regard to fruit content. In my trials, I made 1-gallon batches with 3-6lbs of berries and preferred the port-ish quality of the 6lb/gallon batch, though all of them were wonderful.
My batches pretty consistently come in around 13-14%abv. Your results will vary depending on the sugar content of the fruit, though you can improve the consistency by using a hydrometer and varying the added sugar according to your tastes. For long-term aging, you'll want the abv to be no less than around 12% and sulfiting is recommended. FWIW, it tastes great at a year of aging but three years is unquestionably better in my opinion.
The yeast you use will also dramatically effect the final product. From my experience, the less aggressive the yeast the more fruit esters (taste) will be left after fermentation, hence my use of Cote de Blanc. On the other hand, the less aggressive the yeast, the lower the final abv you can generally achieve and the more likely your ferment may "stick" before completing. If you're going to use an aggressive strain of yeast (e.g., Champagne) to achieve a higher abv, one trick to preserving more of the fruit esters is to reserve 1/2-1/4 of the fruit (juice) until after the primary ferment is finished, and to use juice to top off your secondary/tertiary ferment rather than water. You'll have to reserve space in your fermentor accordingly and the ferment will necessarily take longer, but the results are worth the extra time and effort in my opinion.
The trick to avoiding the tannin taste is simply not to include the seeds in the ferment and not mangling the seeds during removal. The method I use is to thoroughly rinse the berries, freeze them to break down the cell walls, then run them through my juicer which removes the seeds without mangling them. No juicer? Previously, I put them in a brewing bag (cheesecloth, clean pillow case, or similar will also work but you'll never get the stains out) in a large funnel over my primary fermentor, add a plate and some weight, and let drain over however many hours. Avoid aggressive squeezing as you'll just break open the seeds and defeat the purpose.
For a Blackberry Melomel (fruit mead), you could simply replace the sugar in the recipe with around 3lb/gallon of honey. However, keep in mind that at 6lb/gallon of blackberries, the honey taste will be (almost) completely overpowered. FWIW, I make a 5-gallon batch every 2-3 years or so using 3-4lb of honey and 1lb of blackberries per gallon.
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