2 & 1/2 pounds fresh Blackberries 3 cups Sugar 2 cups Hot Water Let the berries set out in a large bowl for about four weeks, stirring them occasionally. The berries will get a rank smell and may begin to mold. With mortar and pestle, crush the berries into as smooth a pulp as possible. Stir in the sugar and then the water. Pour the wine into casks to ferment for eight to ten months. The longer it is kept the better it will be. The wine will have to be aired every few days to allow building gases to escape. This wine has a gentle port-like flavor when finished.
so I have heard that wild yeast makes nasty wine supposedly you're supposed to kill the yeasts and then add some fresh, happy domesticated stuff... i guess with our 45 lbs of blackberries we just picked we could try both the wild and tame yeast in separate batches...you guys interested in hearing how it turns out? also we're thinking about adding rosehips in, anyone got advice for how to properly extract the flavors? peaceness
celeritea: did you end up trying both? I'd love to hear how that went... I'm planning on making some wine soon. I hope it went well! Blackberry wine is the best thing since sliced water chestnuts!
yes yes, water chestnuts and blackberry wine are some of the most ass kicking foods out there so I did try both...the wild yeast wine has a nutty flavor that I am sure comes from no pectic enzymes to stop the bad yeasts... There's 165 types of yeasts that love to get up in your blackberries and have parties, and like 75 of them are bad, so your chances are better than even of getting good wine. the controlled environment wine with montrachet yeast turned out better than i could have imagined...I just used whatever was sitting around the farm in humboldt, and it turned out perfect. Mine actually turned out exactly like a dry bordeaux would. I fortified it with some port to even out the astringency you get from leaving the blackberry pulp in contact with the must. if you're ever near indiana I'll give you a bottle !
