Long Term Fruit Wine Aging

[Benbigmac]

Hi I'm making a wine from berries [raspberry, blackberry, and blueberry] and I'm planning on letting age for up to 25 years (It's a wedding gift for my sister, she's getting a bottle for her 1 year, 10 year and 25 year anniversary) is there anything I should do to ensure the wine can endure aging for that long?

 

[RPh_Guy]

- good sanitation.
- high clarity.
- adequate sulfite level.
- very high quality bottle closures (to minimize oxygen ingress).
- proper storage conditions: stable & 45-55F, keep cork wet if applicable, dark.
- hope their marriage lasts.

 

[Nooner]

Wow. Agree with RPH Guy on everything, but it might be tough to figure out what "adequate" is for 25 year old fruit wine. Very few grape wines are able to go that long, so a fruit wine will be a challenge. You might want to add a little tannin as well, just for some more structure. Something to keep in mind is that most wines that are able to age that long aren't particularly good when young, because they're built for long term aging. So you might want to shoot for the middle, where it's not going to be optimal the first few years. Good luck my friend, it should be very interesting tasting these over the years.

 

[bernardsmith]

I don't have a good answer but I do have a question. Have you ever successfully aged a fruit wine five years? What about ten years? And you want to age this one - what? a quarter of a century? I know it's not the same thing but why not plan on making a different wine for each anniversary?

 

[Yooper]

Some fruit wines age fairly well, but most don't. One I make that ages pretty well is a chokecherry wine that I oak. I have tried them at 8 years, and they are still pretty good but not as good as at 4-5 years. Most berry wines will not age well at all.

I'd consider changing it from a wine to a mead or melomel, and use enough tannin and high enough ABV for it to be acceptable in 5-10 years. It won't age 25 years, at least not well, but it would be better than a straight fruit wine.

 

[Nooner]

I think it is very possible to make an interesting drinkable fruit wine that will last that long. It probably won't peak at that age, but as long as it doesn't spoil it could still be "fun" to drink. I think a healthy dose of kmeta, tannin to give some structure (and everything you can squeeze out of the skins), and most importantly storage in a very cool dark place could work. I've never properly stored my fruit wines (more accurately I have stored my wines very poorly when living in S. Florida household temp usually around 80deg) and have had a few that were still very drinkable and enjoyable at 8 years.

 

[Ron K]

I'm currently recreating my Grandmothers Black Raspberry and BlackBerry wines. They went 10 + years and were very good. She stored in dark stable temp cellar. She did use 1 gal jugs for storage which I dont have.