Cherry Wine Question

[TasunkaWitko]

I have a bag of frozen cherries in my freezer from Montana's beautiful Flathead valley, enough to make at least one 1-gallon batch of wine and (depending on the conclusions of this thread) possibly two.

Flathead cherries are sweet cherries, and it seems that all of the recipes I see for cherry wine are for tart cherries or a combination of sweet and tart (heavy on the tart). I am guessing that this has something to do with acid, but am not sure.

Is there something that a person can do if s/he wants to make a wine exclusively from these cherries? More cherries than called for in most recipes? More acid blend? Or is the wine simply going to be substandard in some way?

Thanks in advance -

Ron

 

[bernardsmith]

May not be "sub-standard" but it might taste a little like cough medicine...I don't know how many pounds of cherries are typically called for in "recipes" and I don't know the provenance (authenticity) of such "recipes" but I would think that 10 lbs of cherries might have enough juice to make a gallon of must. You might be able to make a gallon with 8 lbs but you would need to dilute the must with water... But the secret is to taste the must and then see how much (if any) water it can take before you are drinking colored water rather than fruit juice. Hey! You can always use water to replace "stock" but water and stock don't play in the same league when it comes to flavor...

 

[TasunkaWitko]

Hi, Bernard, and thanks for the quick reply. I might not have enough cherries even for one gallon, after all; it is right about 6 pounds. When I have made other wines (chokecherry, rhubarb, beetroot), 3 pounds worked rather well (along with an addition of water), so I figured that 6 pounds should cover any possibility, but it doesn't sound like that will be the case here.

The recipes I have available are from Winemakers Recipe Handbook by Raymond Massaccesi. I also have recipes from E.C. Kraus's and Jack Keller's websites; I was intending to go with an amalgam or average of the three sources. By the sounds of it, however, I might have to simply wing it and call it a learning experience. Next year, I can get more cherries and give it another shot.

 

[TasunkaWitko]

it might taste a little like cough medicine...

Hi again -

Regarding the above, I tried to do a little reading on this; based on the little reading I did, and am reading correctly, it appears that the primary cause for that is too much acid in the fruit. I am guessing that "tart" cherries must have less acid per pound, which is the reason that they (or a blend) are usually used.

 

[TasunkaWitko]

IF I read Jack Keller's site correctly, it looks possible that the acid imbalance (apparently too much malic acid) that is found in most cherries might be mitigated somewhat by using citric acid, rather than acid blend.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

 

[TasunkaWitko]

Another option - this one looks to be written specifically for sweet cherries:

http://blog.eckraus.com/sweet-cherry-wine-recipe

 

[voltron]

Another option - this one looks to be written specifically for sweet cherries:

http://blog.eckraus.com/sweet-cherry-wine-recipe

I have made cherry wine similar to the link except i did not use brown sugar and i used 8oz of orange juice for a five gallon batch in place of the acids used. It turned out well, but it will be something you drink with in a year. for some reason the cherry wine i made does not age well. it is good young but i had opened one i aged to years and something was off i guess like was mentioned before it does have a medicine type of taste. So i guess the point is that it is a good recipe for a young wine, but not really for aging. To me it seems like the bulk of the fermentation is really just the sugar in that recipe rather than the cherries.

Because i personally did not like the taste of aged sweet cherry wine, i dont a make a cherry wine that way anymore. now if I want a cherry type wine, i will ferment white grape juice and rack to secondary and in secondary introduce the cherries. .this methid gave me something i liked better and something I could age and it seemed more like a cherry wine than the straigt cherry wines i have made

 

[TasunkaWitko]

I think I've got a pretty good plan for this, but have a question about yeast:

Given these two choices, can anyone weigh the pros and cons of Montrachet vs. Cote de Blancs? These are the only two yeasts available to me.

Thank you.

 

[voltron]

here is a summary. Personally i prefer montrachet. The cotes de blanca leave stuff to sweet for my liking. I have a few wines aging where I used montrachet.

 

[TasunkaWitko]

Thank you, Voltron!