Flathead Cherry Wine

[TasunkaWitko]

From the beautiful Flathead Valley in Montana, not far from Glacier National Park, comes a wonderful local specialty: flathead cherries.
It seems that the entire state waits impatiently for mid-summer, when the sweet, heavenly cherries are picked and distributed far and wide.

At a local grocery today, I encountered these wonderful orbs of love for the first time this year. I instantly snatched up a bunch of them - ignoring the fiscal protests of The Beautiful and Ever-Practical Mrs. Tas - and immediately sought out a recipe when I got home.

I bought abut 6 pounds total, and the recipes that I found seem to average at 4 pounds; this will leave a few extra, possibly for canning or some other project. Here is the recipe that I am going to try, unless someone has a better idea:

Cherry Wine

4 pounds cherries
7 pints water
2.25 pounds sugar
1 teaspoon acid blend
1/2 teaspoon pectic enzyme
1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
1 crushed campden tablet
1 package of wine yeast

Starting S.G. - 1.090

Wash, remove stems and leaves, and preferably remove pits (use a pitter, either mechanical or a couple of extra hands from around the house). In any case, be careful not to break the bitter pits.

Using a nylon straining bag mash and squeeze out juice into primary fermenter. keeping all pulp in straining bag, tie top and place in primary.

Stir in all other ingredients except yeast. Cover primary.

After 24 hours, add yeast.

Stir daily, check S.G. and press pulp lightly to aid extraction.

When ferment reaches S.G. 1.030 (about 5 days) strain juice from bag. Siphon wine off sediment into glass jug (secondary). Attach airlock.

When ferment is complete (S.G. has dropped to 1.000 - about 3 weeks) siphon off sediment into a clean secondary. Re-attach airlock.

To aid clearing siphon again in 2 months and again if necessary before bottling.

The yeast that I have is Montrachet, so we'll see how it works.

As I said above, I'm very open to suggestion here; this recipe closely resembles my other attempts at wine-making (chokecherry and rhubarb), but there are a few differences.

A few questions:

Does 4 pounds of cherries seem like a good amount?

Would the 4 pounds of cherries be measured before or after pitting?

When making the two previous wines mentioned above, I added some golden raisins for "body." should I do that with this recipe, as well?

Suggestions, comments and feedback are always welcome.

Thanks for checking this out. More as it happens, etc. &c....

Ron

 

[lukebuz]

I'd go a bit more, I'd use all 6 lbs, honestly.
I've never used raisins, in any of my 40 batches of fruit wine, and people rave of them. It's up to you. Do you want grape/cherry, or cherry wine?

I've made several batches of cherry, and yes, 6 lbs is right on for me. Don't forget to make 1.4 gallons, to allow for racking, without water top-ups.

 

[TasunkaWitko]

Hi, Luke, and thanks for the reply.

New information - I am 95% sure that these Flathead cherries are Lambert cherries, which are sweet cherries, if that makes a difference.

Since I have 6 pounds, I figure I will use them all, except maybe 2 or 3 cherries for sampling. Having made that decision, do you think I should bring the amount of sugar up by a proportional amount? I know that the "correct" answer would be to use the SG as a guide, but I'm speaking in general terms.

I am not sure how much juice 6 pounds of cherries will generate, but based on the simple fact that they will generate more than 4 pounds would have, I am guessing that I could start with a little less water - maybe 6 pints instead of seven. Would you concur?

Thanks again -

Ron

 

[gratus fermentatio]

Sounds good, but I also think you should go with more fruit. 6-8lbs/gallon. Flathead cherries are mostly lambert, a sweet cherry. Sweet cherries don't have a lot of flavor compared to tart cherries (pie cherries). Other than the amount of fruit, I'd say your recipe is pretty solid.

I'd freeze & thaw those pitted cherries at least once, preferably twice before fermenting. This will help break down the cell walls & results in a lot more juice/flavor extraction; I do this with all the fruit I ferment. BTW, this is the cherry pitter I use, works pretty good on Flathead cherries (but it's not perfect):
https://www.lehmans.com/product/freestanding-cherry-pitter

Something else you might consider is pressing or juicing those pitted cherries & fermenting that juice. Have you ever had Ten Spoon's Flathead Dry Cherry Wine? That will give you a good idea of what it'll taste like.
https://www.tenspoon.com/product/flathead-cherry-dry/

I've got 6 gallons of Flathead cherry melomel aging right now, and another 20lbs of fruit in the freezer, waiting for autumn when the temps fall to ferment. I'll have to hit the farmers' market this weekend for another 20lbs.
Regards, GF.

 

[madscientist451]

I made cherry wine one time, using sour cherries I picked myself from a local orchard. My 2 cents: its not worth all the effort. The fermentation process removes all cherry flavor and I was left with a very tart "wine" that
wasn't all that great. I ended up back sweetening with cherry flavored syrup and eventually drank it all, but unless I had a big pile of cherries for free I wouldn't do it again.
Your recipe calls for adding sugar which can result in a "hot" or "rocket fuel" alcohol note which takes a good bit of aging to mellow out.
Any cherries I get now (mostly sour cherries) go into my Flanders red after 1 year of secondary. The fermentation kicks off a little but not that much so there is cherry character added to the beer. Cherries can also be a nice addition to secondary in Cider.
You can freeze your cherries and consider your options, they'll give more juice after being thawed out.

 

[TasunkaWitko]

G'morning, guys - many thanks for the replies.

GF - regarding this:

Sounds good, but I also think you should go with more fruit. 6-8lbs/gallon. Flathead cherries are mostly lambert, a sweet cherry. Sweet cherries don't have a lot of flavor compared to tart cherries (pie cherries). Other than the amount of fruit, I'd say your recipe is pretty solid.

I've been thinking about this, and it dawns on me that we are indeed going to be in the area this weekend, so I will get two more pounds of cherries, for an even 8 pounds total for the gallon.

In your opinion, should I stick with the Lamberts, or should I be on the lookout for some possible way to get sour cherries, in order to make a blend?

The cherries that I did get are currently in the freezer. I will thaw/re-freeze them as you suggest before starting the project. Thanks for the suggestion! I usually freeze fruit for wine once, but twice makes sense.

More as it happens - I am hoping for some good results, as this is truly a "Montana thing...."

 

[lukebuz]

I don't think a double freezing is needed - seems kind of silly. Once frozen, water ruptures the cells walls, and that's it. Freezing again? ??
Also, if you ferment on the fruit (I always do) they will breakdown, and the pits and stems will just fall out. Ferment in a paint straining bag (new and washed, of course), and your mess is all contained!

It all comes to your choice on blending. I like "pure" fruit wines, so I'll do 1 flavor. However - I do blend later (Apple/Cranberry or Strawberry/Rhubarb).

 

[gratus fermentatio]

G'morning, guys - many thanks for the replies.

GF - regarding this:



I've been thinking about this, and it dawns on me that we are indeed going to be in the area this weekend, so I will get two more pounds of cherries, for an even 8 pounds total for the gallon.

In your opinion, should I stick with the Lamberts, or should I be on the lookout for some possible way to get sour cherries, in order to make a blend?

The cherries that I did get are currently in the freezer. I will thaw/re-freeze them as you suggest before starting the project. Thanks for the suggestion! I usually freeze fruit for wine once, but twice makes sense.

More as it happens - I am hoping for some good results, as this is truly a "Montana thing...."

Good luck finding tart cherries in the flathead, I've tried many times, and still haven't found them. I usually get the excuse that they sell them all to lcl restaurants, maybe that's true, I don't know. I think they mostly have a small amount, from trees primarily used as pollinizers for the main crop of sweet cherries.

I think Lamberts are the most common cherry in the Flathead, but you should also be able to find Lapin, Bing, Vann's, maybe Stella, Rainier, and Royal Anne. Not sure how much a different sweet cherry would make in flavor though. It's the tart cherries that have the most cherry flavor. I suppose if you really wanted to, you could just buy a quart of tart cherry juice & add that; though it sounds like you want to keep this a purely MT made wine.
Regards, GF.

 

[TasunkaWitko]

Well, I had such a good time over on the other side of the state that I totally forgot to pick up any more cherries, tart or sweet!

It looks like I'll be making this wine with the 6 pounds that I have, but I am hoping that will be fine; I'm guessing that it will be pretty hard to end up with a flat-out BAD wine. I'll probably get this started as soon as I bottle my chokecherry wine, which is LONG overdue but has been bulk-aging nicely, I hope.

More as it happens -

Ron

 

[TasunkaWitko]

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

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