Blackberry Port

kanielb1 · 06-16-2009, 08:15 PM

I am about to make 1 gallon of Blackberry wine. I have half a fifth of Hennessy that I would like to add to make a Port. How much Hennessy should I add to a gallon of wine?
~thanks

jesse · 06-17-2009, 02:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kanielb1

I am about to make 1 gallon of Blackberry wine. I have half a fifth of Hennessy that I would like to add to make a Port. How much Hennessy should I add to a gallon of wine?
~thanks

sounds good....i guess it depends on what is in your blackberry wine. If you make it strong and put a lot of body in it ....it would do.... I suggest adding oak for at least a month. I would add 1 cup of brandy

etp777 · 06-17-2009, 04:58 AM

Making port is more than just adding brandy, need the flavor/body to m atch it. I was trying to adapt Jack Keller's blackberry port recipe to use jam/preserves earlier today, and I can tell you right from start his port used twice as many blackberries as the medium bodied blackberry wine. Plus another 1/2 pint of red grap econcentrate. So definitely more complicated than just adding some brandy (cognac? can't remember which hennessy is technically) at end.

**Yuri_Rage** · 06-17-2009, 05:32 AM

You can certainly fortify an intentionally sweet wine in order to achieve a port-like quality, but it's very difficult to find the proper "brandy" to make an authentic port. The traditional method entails adding a 100+ proof distillate. See Aguardente. To nitpick further, if your recipe uses fruit other than grapes, it's not really port, but that's a bit beyond the scope of the discussion.

More on topic, you'll need to make an extremely sweet/sugar rich must. When it's time to fortify (before fermentation is complete), you'll want to ensure that you overwhelm the yeast with alcohol so that they are unable to further ferment the wine and dry it out. Your final ABV should be above 18%.

**summersolstice** · 06-17-2009, 11:40 AM

Also not intending to nitpick, Yuri's right. I refer to my blackberry as "Port-style" and I used 23 pounds of fruit for a 5-gallon batch, making a very heavy - almost chewy - wine. With a high OG and then step feeding the fermentation it produced a high alcohol wine (15% or so) even before fortifying it with Everclear and Brandy:

After Midnight Port-style wine