Blueberry wine??????

[james]

I'm about to make a batch or two of (domestic) blueberry wine. Last
year I made a 5 gallon batch with Vintner's Harvest concentrate
according to the recipe and the resulting wine was a big disapointment
in regard to flavor , body , and nose. At a wine tasting I sampled
someone's homemake blueberry and it was everything my wine was not. He
said his fruit usage was 1 gallon of blueberrys to 1/2 gallon water.
My supplier says his berrys are 8 pounds to the gallon. This is a lot
of fruit to the gallon of wine it seems. Most of the recipes I see for
blueberry are no more than 3 pounds per gallon. What has everyone's
experience been on the amount of blueberrys to use per gallon of wine?
Thanks ,

[nine...@yahoo.com]

> My supplier says his berrys are 8 pounds to the gallon. This is a lot
> of fruit to the gallon of wine it seems. Most of the recipes I see for
> blueberry are no more than 3 pounds per gallon. What has everyone's
> experience been on the amount of blueberrys to use per gallon of wine?

You're touching on a recurring r.c.w. subject here, which is the
concentration of fruit in non-grape wine. I won't stir that up. But I
will say that I have made blueberry wine twice now; once with low and
once with high concentration.

The first time I used 3 pints (about 2.4 lbs) and 1 gallon of water.
The resulting wine was on the thin side, but very aromatic and
reminiscent of a Pinot Noir. I finished it dry and we had it with,
among other things, London broil sauteed with mushrooms. Based on
this, I knew that I liked BB wine, so I decided to make lots more -
with more body and flavor next time.

The second time, I used 2 gallons of water along with *37* pints of
blueberries (about 30 lbs), yielding a total liquid must of about 5.5
gallons after fermenting on the skins and pressing. That's about 5.5
lbs per gallon of wine (note of *wine* not water).

Or put another way, the must is about 64% blueberry juice, and the
rest water. The first time, the concentration was something like 10%.
Big difference there. My point is that 30 lbs of blues created 3.5
gallons of juice.

It's still too early to judge because the wine is clearing now.
However, a very early taste showed that it has great promise - it's
certainly not lacking in flavor or body, and that was my goal. I can
only assume it will improve as it ages.

Roger
Quinta do Placer

[smal...@gmail.com]

Hi there, I just came across your post. I see it a few yrs back but I'm wondering if you would be willing to share your recipe for the blueberry wine?


Shawn