Cherry Wine

Hi folks,
I've never made wine but I've been making beer for several months, now. I was thinking about cherry wine because I've got a tree full of ripe cherries, but I don't know what kind they are. They're sour and not really good for eating. Would they be OK for wine? Anyone got a recipe?

Sour/tart/pie cherries should make better wine than sweet cherries, they have more flavor. I only have one cherry (total) on my trees this year, had a late frost. Maybe next year. Here's a link for recipes. They all seem to be similar, except for the cherry type. Morellos are a sour cherry, that recipe might be your best bet.

Sour Cherries will make great wine. I'd use the Jack Keller Morrello recipe that David linked. It's pretty much an 'all purpose sour cherry' recipe that should work very well.

Thanx guys, I appreciate the info.

I'll be needing a few extra supplies for this. Probably won't be able to do this before next weekend. The cherries are ripe now. Should I harvest now,crush and freeze, or maybe pick and refrigerate, or maybe they'll still be good on the tree next week? Any thoughts?

Evets said:

I'll be needing a few extra supplies for this. Probably won't be able to do this before next weekend. The cherries are ripe now. Should I harvest now,crush and freeze, or maybe pick and refrigerate, or maybe they'll still be good on the tree next week? Any thoughts?

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Freezing breaks the cell walls, so you'll get more juice, while keeping the fruit good. Just pit and freeze, you may not even need much crushing, but that's probably easier done partly frozen.

Good luck, I need to get my folks to save me sour cherries, if there is ever a year they don't eat them all!

Well I made the wine. It's been in secondary for two weeks, now, and I can't believe how good it is already. It's almost crystal clear and tastes better than any wine I've ever tasted. The recipe says to bottle after 3 months and age 1 year, but I'm afraid I won't like it as much by then. Of course, I do have 5 gallons, and I'm not that much of a wine drinker, so I guess some of it'll still be around in a year. The OG was 1.095 and it finished at 0.992

I promise you'll like it after a year! The reason you wait 3 months (or longer) before bottling is to allow all the sediment to drop out completely. You can rack it every month or two if it's dropping lees. My blackberry is bulk aging in the carboy. I'll probably bottle it in the fall. It's only 3 months old right now.

Cherry wine gets better with age, and in a year you'll wish you made 15 gallons! After bottling, you can start enjoying the wine in a month or so.

Lorena

Thanx, Lorena. I'll take your word for it and wait. Sorry for the delayed response, I was at the GreyFox bluegrass festival til today. Had a blast, as usual.

I thought about making some cherry wine, but I only got one cherry this year. Three trees, one cherry. Not getting many blueberries either. Late frost, d@mn global warming!

Lots of blackberries and hot dry weather, though. Should be sweet!

Hi All,
Emma here, Author and Webmaster of Wine Making EBook at http://www.wineandbeermakingsecrets.com

Old Cherry Wine Recipe as follows:

Take of soft cold water, 10 galls., cherries, 10 galls. Ferment. Mix raw sugar, 30 lbs., red tartar, in fine powder, 3 oz. Add brandy, 2 or 3 quarts. This will make 18 galls.
Two days after the cherries have been in the vat, take out about 3 quarts of the cherry-stones, break them and the kernels, and return them into the vat again.
Another. - Take cherries nearly ripe, of any red sort, clear them of the stalks and stones, then put them into a glazed earthen vessel and squeeze them to a pulp. Let them remain in this state for 12 hours to ferment, then put them into a linen cloth not too fine and press out the juice with a pressing-board, or any other convenient instrument. Now let the liquor stand till the scum rises, and with a ladle or skimmer take it clean off; then pour the clear part, by inclination, into a cask, where to each gallon put 1 lb. of the best loaf sugar, and let it ferment for 7 or 8 days. Draw it off when clear, into lesser casks or bottles; keep it cool as other wines, and in 10 or 12 days it will be ripe.

Hundreds of other recipes are available in my EBook, See the list here

http://www.wineandbeermakingsecrets.com/ebook1_contents.htm

More Recipes coming soon
Love Emma, Ireland

Well it's done, more or less. I had quite a bit of headspace in my carboy, and read on here that that was bad, so I went ahead and bottled. I reckon it can age in bottles as well as in a carboy. I took a couple bottles to my local HBS where there just happened to be a small gathering of local vintners. My two bottles didn't last long and everyone said it was pretty good for such a young wine. I must say I'm rather proud of my first wine.



Note them fancy plastic screw-on caps! Now there be some real class, ay!?

Wow- the wine looks great (fancy screw tops and all). It is such a great color, and so clear! Good job.

Lorena

I've never made cherry wine from raw fruit, yet, but have read some recipes. Most call for a combination of cherries, almost all call for some of them to be sour. Remember you can always sweeten the wine before bottling (or before drinking).

I might recommend looking up a bunch of recipes on the internet (there's tons) and buying some black cherries from your grocery store to balance the sour ones from your tree.

In general, I've found that using several different varieties of whatever fruit in the must is beneficial. For example, we make apple wines and ones with 3 or more kinds of apples usually have a nicer flavor than ones with just 1 or 2 varieties.

Hey, Thanx for the advice. I'll have to try adding some different varieties next year, when I make it again. And I WILL be making it again. My only regret is; as many cherries it took to make this, I left AT LEAST as many on the tree!
Lorena, Thanx for the compliments. I only wish you could taste it!

Would using a jar of cherries work the same, or wouldn't the taste be as good ?

David,

I looked at the link you gave to the winemaking page. It looks like that recipe for cherry wine is for 1 gallon. I presume if I wanted to make 5 gallons that I would just scale all the ingredients times 5. Is that correct?

So how has the cherry wine aged?

We're going Sour Cherry picking tonight and am seriously thinking of doing this. I have noticed some recipes call for yeast nutrient, is this necessary for Cherry?

Should you take the pits outta the cherries every recipe i have doesn't specify

This wine aged well, I guess. The flavor never really changed, but it's not as "hot" tasting as it was. I have 3 bottles left.
I use yeast nutrient in all my wines. Whether it needs it or not, I can't say, but I figure it really can't hurt.
I've got four gallons of cherries in my freezer now, for a three gallon batch coming up soon. Freezing helps break down the cell walls, thereby releasing more juice. I just mash a couple handfuls at a time in a coarse nylon grain bag and remove all the pits and stems.