Blackberry Wine Recipe

 

I love blackberries, so it is only a natural progression to make blackberry wine.    This blackberry wine recipe is delicious and easy to make.   There is nothing like fresh blackberries, too.  They are so easy to grow, provided you give them what they want.   Check out my YouTube videos to see how I grow them.   If you have a little space, you can build yourself a trellis or an arbor and have so many delicious blackberries that you will be able to:

• Blackberry Jam
• Have fresh blackberries with a little whipped cream for breakfast
• And make a wonderful wine with this blackberry wine recipe

Many types of blackberries have thorns.  I chose to plant a thorn-less variety.  A friend of mine have great success with Triple Crown Blackberries.    I was looking at Chester blackberries, but after seeing his enormous success, I went with the Triple Crown, too.    I bought two Triple Crown Blackberry plants and put them on each side of the arbor that you see in my videos.   The arbor is 24 feet long and about 7 feet high, so each plant easily grows over 18 feet and they meet at the middle.   It took about 2 or 3 years to get them to really start producing a very large amount of blackberries.  I believe each plant can produce over 30 lbs of blackberries after three years… WOW!

In hind sight, I probably should have planted one Triple Crown and one Chester.    The Chester blackberries start to ripen just after the harvest of the Triple Crown blackberries.   When I choose fruit to grow, I try to have something ripe a different times.  For instance, first I get my strawberries, then after those are finished I start to get blueberries.  While the blueberries are producing, I start to get black raspberries.   Shortly into the raspberries, the blackberries start to produce.   So, I kind of like to time things that way.    You always have something fresh and delicious from the garden.

This blackberry wine recipe is pretty simple to make.   I have made several blackberry wine recipes and have done it different almost every time.   This blackberry wine recipe is more or less a guideline.   It came out really nice the last time I made it, so I am sharing that blackberry wine recipe.

When making this blackberry wine recipe, try to pick your blackberries at the peak of ripeness.   You will need to freeze them, as you will not be able to have that many blackberries all perfectly ripe at the same time easily.   I believe freezing the fruit after washing it makes a better wine anyway, so I recommend freezing the blackberries even if you are able to get all of them at once.

Here is the official Sicilian Prince Blackberry Wine Recipe:

Blackberry Wine Recipe
Ingredient	For 3 Gallons	For 6 Gallons
Blackberries	12 lbs	24 lbs
Water (Clean Filtered, Distilled or Bottled)	2.5 Gallons	5 Gallons
Sugar	6.5 lbs	13 lbs
Dried Elderberries	1 Cup	2 Cups
Yeast Nutrient	1 Tbsp	2 Tbsp
Campden Tablet	3 tablets	6 tablets
Acid Blend	1 Tbsp	2 Tbsp
Pectic Enzyme	1/2 Tbsp	1 Tbsp
Champagne Yeast or Lalvin EC-1118	1 Packet	1 Packet

Now, let’s get started with this blackberry wine recipe.    Thaw out the blackberries in a nylon mesh bag in your primary fermentor.

Boil about a quart of water and add the dried elderberries to the boiling water.   Simmer over a low heat with the cover on for a half hour.

In another pot, heat up some of the water and dissolve the sugar in the water.   You don’t need to use all of the water in this recipe, just enough to make the sugar dissolve.

Add the elderberries and the water from the elderberries into the mesh back, along with the blackberries, and mash them with a sanitized potato masher.  Mash them really good, then tie the bag closed.

Pour the sugar water on top of the now closed mesh bag in the primary fermentor.   Do a little more mashing and stirring.   After you have mixed these ingredients, you can add the remainder of the water.   It should cool off the juice.

Next in this blackberry wine recipe, add the acid blend, yeast nutrient and crushed Campden tablets and stir the mixture well.  Cover and wait 12 hours.

12 hours later, add the pectic enzyme and stir it in well.   Cover and wait another 12 hours.

At this time, 24 hrs have past since the campden tablets have been added.   You can pitch the yeast.    Sprinkle the yeast on top of the mixture and put the cover back on.

Wait two days, then stir the blackberry wine with a sanitized spoon twice a day.   You should see signs of fermentation.

After about a week, check the specific gravity.   It should be at or under 1.02 or in that neighborhood.  When I am comfortable with that reading, I take the net bag out, and with very clean hands, I gently squeeze the juice from the bag into the primary fermentor. This is one of the fun parts of making this blackberry wine recipe.  I like the squeezing.  I then compost the berries in the bag.

Now, I rack to a clean and sanitized carboy and attach a bung with airlock.   I move the carboy into a dark location and let the secondary fermentation take place.   If I have a feeling that the fermentation is not going as fast as it should, I may choose to add a little yeast nutrient when racking to the secondary.    Also, I may optionally put in a few toasted oak cubes.

At this point, I let the carboy sit about a month or longer.  After that time, I take a specific gravity reading and it should be really dry, something like .990 or in that neighborhood.    I then rack off any sediment with my auto siphon with the anti-sediment tip attached into another clean and sanitized carboy.

After racking, I add a crushed campden tablet for each gallon of wine.    I then degass the wine with my mix-stir drill mounted device.    It may take a half hour to stir out the bubbles.  Keep stirring until it is completely flat.

Next, I add my fining agents.    I use sparkoloid according to the directions on the container.   You can use sparkoloid, chitosan or whatever fining agent your like.   I use sparkoloid with excellent results.   The Chitosan is a shellfish derivative, so I avoid it in all of my recipes.   Consider the ingredients and allergies with anything you make.

After stirring in the sparkoloid for a few minutes, I put the airlock and bung back on the carboy and let it sit in a dark location for at least 14 days.

After at least 14 days have past, the next step in this blackberry wine recipe is to rack off the sediment into a clean and sanitized carboy.   Once again, I use my auto-siphon with the anti-sediment tip attached.    After racking, this time I will top up the carboy all the way to the neck of the carboy.   I put the airlock and bung back on the carboy and let the carboy sit in a dark place for three months.    I check the airlock to make sure there is enough liquid in the airlock.   I use vodka in my airlocks, but some folks use water.

After the three months have past, I like to filter this wine.   This is optional, but I do it most of the time for this blackberry wine recipe.  After filtering, I decide if I want to back sweeten the blackberry wine.   Usually, I want it a little off dry, but I suggest you taste it.

If you decide you like it the way it is without back sweetening, it is time to bottle.  Bottle the blackberry wine and age in the bottle at least 4 to 6 months.    Give it a try after that time and see what you think.

If you do decide to back sweeten this blackberry wine recipe, I suggest you add add some sorbate and follow my process for back sweetening wine.

I hope you like my blackberry wine recipe and give it a try.    For variations on it, you can add a couple of ripe bananas to the primary.   While it doesn’t add a banana flavor, it does add a little body.    If you don’t have the elderberries, you can leave those out, but I kind of like what they do to this blackberry wine recipe.   Elderberries are high in tannin, so don’t over do it.

-Cheers!