Blackberry Wine Recipe – Juicy, Full Bodied Red
Blackberry wine is the first fruit wine I ever made. It is an easy choice for where I live because blackberries grow abundantly in the village where I live. Bramble bushes seem to spring up anywhere, be it woodland, waste ground or parks so gathering fruit is not a problem and blackberry wine is one of my favourites, this recipe is well worth a try.
This blackberry wine recipe is so easy to do and if you can get the fruit for free then it really is a no-brainer to make a batch every year. The colour is deep red and the flavour is bold enough that it makes a great table wine.
Table of Contents
Blackberry Wine – A Fine Foraged Wine
Blackberries are great for winemaking, they grow freely in the wild and are full of flavourful juice and sugar.
They can range from tart to sweet and a blend is preferable but the flavour of the wine can be easily tweaked with acid blend. Blackberries also have a fairly high level of tannin which lifts the flavour and gives the finished wine a robustness.
Gathering Your Blackberries
If you are foraging for blackberries to make this wine you will probably notice that different bushes contain slightly different fruit. Blackberries on one bush may be large and plump, another bush they may be small and tightly packed. The tastes will also be slightly different with some more tart and sour others slightly sweeter.
These variations mean it is generally a good idea to pick your blackberries from multiple different bushes or locations so you end up with a good blend of sweet, tart and juice levels.
If you are using shop bought blackberries then I would suggest frozen blackberries as the first choice as they are likely to be riper and have a higher sugar content. Of course, fresh fruit will be fine but supermarkets often have them early before they are fully ripe to give them a longer shelf life.
Preparing Blackberries For Wine Making
If you are foraging blackberries then picking through the bad form the food is imperative. A simple trick to hasten this process is to place them in a bowl of cold water. The majority of the bad fruit or insect damaged berries will float on the surface whilst the good blackberries will sink to the bottom. A strainer can be used to scoop out the bad blackberries and the remainder can be drained and picked through by hand.
As blackberries are a soft skinned fruit they will be ready to make wine with straight away, however, you may freeze them if you are foraging so that you don’t have to collect all the fruit at once. When you are ready to make the wine you simply need to defrost the blackberries in your fermenting bucket.
What You’ll Need To Make Blackberry Wine – Makes 1 gallon / 4.5 litres
- Small Fermenting Bucket
- Demijohn
- Large Pan
- Syphon
- Fine Straining Bag
- Airlock & Bung
- Potato Masher
Blackberry Wine Ingredients
- 1.8kg Blackberries
- 4.5 litres Water
- 1kg Sugar
- 2 tsp Acid Blend (use just prior to bottling according to taste)
- 1 tsp Yeast Nutrient
- 1 Campden Tablet
- 1/2 tsp Pectic Enzyme
- 1 sachet of Wine Yeast (Lalvin EC-1118 is a good choice)
Blackberry Wine Method
1. Take the prepared blackberries and put them in the straining bag, inside the sanitised fermenting bucket. Break down the blackberries in the secured straining bag to release the juices. Secure the bag.
2. In a large pan begin heating half the water, slowly add the sugar and stir to dissolve all the sugar without scorching. Bring to the boil for 2 – 3 minutes and then turn off the heat.
3. Pour the boiling sugar solution over the blackberries, add the remaining half of the water to bring the temperature and add the yeast nutrient and mix thoroughly.
4. A few hours later when the must has cooled further add crushed Campden tablet and stir thoroughly. Secure the lid and allow to stand for at least 12 hours.
5. After 12 hours add the pectic enzyme to the blackberries and stir in thoroughly. Leave the must to stand for a further 24 hours.
6. After 24 hours add the yeast to the must by sprinkling onto the surface. Secure the fermenter lid with the airlock and allow primary fermentation to begin.
7. For the first 3 – 4 days agitate the blackberries by stirring as they will have a tendency to float to the top of the wine.
8. After 7 days lift out the bag of blackberries and let them drain as much as possible without squeezing. Discard the berries and recover the fermenter for at least 24 hours to settle.
9. After at least 24 hours rack the blackberry wine to a demijohn and seal with a bung and airlock. Allow the wine to condition and settle for 3 – 4 weeks or until clear before racking to a clean demijohn. Now is a good time to take a hydrometer reading to ensure complete fermentation.
10. Bulk age the wine for a minimum of 4 – 6 months in the demijohn. Keep the blackberry wine in a cool dark place to age.
11. After bulk ageing rack the wine to bottles, if you wish to back sweeten wine now is the time to do so using this guide. Now is also time to adjust the acidity should you wish, mix the acid blend with a small amount of boiled water and add to the wine in small amounts to achieve your desired acidity.
This blackberry wine is a nice juicy red wine. It is best to rest the bottles for as long as you can wait before sampling as this wine will continue to improve with age.
Hello
Thanks for this recipe. However, it would be nice to know the volume of yeast needed – “1 sachet of yeast” is a bit vague. I’ll have to look at other recipes to see how much is needed for this volume of wine.
Thanks
Mark
Sorry about that, the post has been updated now. Hope the wine turns out well!
Around 1 gram/gallon. Half or twice as much does not matter as the yeast reproduce about every 2 hours. In the 5-7 days to do the bulk of fermenting they will have reproduced quite a few times. By the time they start dying off from too much alcohol there will be many times the yeast cells as when you started. The satchet is usually 5-11 grams.
when do you add the acid blend?
The acid blend can be added at the same time as the yeast nutrient.
I’m new to this game, i cant see when you’re supposed to add the yeast nutrient? I guess it’s the same time as the yeast?
Yes, the yeast nutrient goes in anytime before the yeast goes in, timing isn’t really crucial.
Hi I’ve made the blackberry wine for the first time this year. I took hydrometer readings, but didn’t note the starting reading down. Do you have an idea what the final alcohol content might be?
The sugar addition was enough to take the gravity to 1.080. There will be some sugar in the blackberries too but difficult to estimate. The sugar alone will be take the gravity to around 10.5 – 11% abv and then you would have the sugar from the blackberries on top.
Hope this helps.
I make this wine every year and the feedback from friends and family have been amazing. I left the first batch in the bottle for nearly 3 years before drinking, and WOW that blackberry flavour really comes out. Defiantly recommend leaving to age for as long as you can possibly wait.
I now have 20 bottles waiting patiently to be drunk, with another batch just today transferred to the demijohn.. ( I added a few handfuls of Elderberries to the batch for experimental purposes too)
That great. I wish I had as much resolve as you as my blackberry wine tends to disappear a lot sooner 🙂
Hello
I’m currently making some at the moment!
Other recipes include adding a crushed Camden tablet and potassium sorbate when racking. Is this necessary?
Also how do we know if we need to add fining to the wine?
Really enjoying the process so far!
You can do this, Campden tablets act as an anti oxidant although it is not strictly necessary. Take a look at this article for more info: Campden tablets
Hope this helps
I’m confused – the recipe says to add yeast at both steps 3 & 6 but the recipe only calls for one sachet of yeast?
In step 3 you add yeast nutrient which is an additive to feed the yeast which is added in step 6 hope this clears things up.
My first batch has been sitting in demijohn #1 for a bit over four weeks – I just tasted a little sip and it already tastes amazing, fingers crossed I can leave it alone til it’s properly ready – so according to your recipe it’s time to go into demijohn #2. Is this step to remove some of the sediment? Could I skip this and just leave it in the first demijohn? Also when you’re bulk resting the wine, do you still have an airlock or do you seal the demijohn with a cork / bung?
I like to rack off the sediment as if left too long the yeast can contribute off flavours that are undesirable. Once the wine is fully fermented and bulk ageing an airlock isn’t required, a solid bung will be fine.
Is bulk aging for 4 months necessary could I not age it for a month in demijohn then bottle it and leave the bottles to age?
It is entirely up to you. I like to age my wines in bulk but I know the feeling of wanting to clear a demijohn and get another wine on. Give it a sample and if you are happy then bottle it.
I’m very new to winemaking. Can the wine be aged in a refrigerator if I don’t have any other cool, dark places available? I have a small wine cooler but I’m using it for cheese making and I don’t think a demijohn can fit in there.
A fridge will be slightly to cold to condition wine. A fridge on a thermostat will cycle it on and off to maintain a higher temperature but you would need to buy this separately.
Could you use wine finings instead of racking it twice?
Yes, finings will considerably speed up the clearing and will just require racking off the once after the wines cleared. Just make sure the wine has completely finished before fining and it is a go idea to degas the wine to ensure proper clearing.
Hi there, how sweet is this wine? I made a gorgeous dry blackberry wine a few years ago but I lost the recipe. We’re not fans of sweet wine so I really want to make a dry one again.
It is fairly dry. It is one of my favourites and there is hardly any residual sweetness.
Hello! I am in the process of making this recipe now. I’m wondering if you have a experimented with tannins at all in the recipe. I really like a nice dry wine, and am wondering if the addition of some wine tannins would be good.
You can buy tannins for making fruit wine and they are used a lot in other recipes posted here. Blackberries have quite a lot of tannins already, however, if you want more then I would suggest adding them after fermentation and after you have sampled the wine. Tweaking the additions here can help ensure you don’t go overboard on the tannins.
Hi, I have made this recipe for the first time this year starting it at the end of July having previously used one that had equal quantities fruit and sugar. This one does not seem to be fermenting as vigorously and has cleared very quickly. It also tastes quite a bit lighter and less alcoholic than the other blackberry wine recipe. Have we done something wrong? Fermentation seems to have pretty much stopped after a couple of weeks. We even tried returning it to the bucket and adding more yeast but to no avail which suggests the sugar has already been fermented, whereas the other recipe is still bubbling away! Any ideas what is going on?
Hi Abbi, it is difficult to know what is happening with regards to the other recipe. The amount of sugar specified should result in a wine of 12 – 13% depending on the sugar content of the berries.
If there is no sweetness left in the wine it indicates the yeast have done their job. The only way to be sure would be by taking a hydrometer reading.
If you prefer a stronger wine you can add more sugar but I would recommend only another 100-200 grams as the yeast will not ferment over 15-16% ABV and leave a lot of sweetness in the wine.
Hope this makes sense.
I have about 4.2kg of blackberries. Would it be OK to follow this recipe using the same quantities of everything of everything else, but using all my blackberries?
Hi posted a comment a minute ago. I meant to ask if it would be OK to use exactly double the quantities for everything in the recipe, apart from the blackberries, which I have about 4.2kg of. Can you put slightly more blackberries in, essentially.
Yes, there isn’t a problem with adding more blackberries but there is diminishing returns in terms of how much flavour the extra berries will introduce. You will only need one sachet of yeast still. All the best.
Thanks. I had no use for the extra berries really, so thought I may as well put them in. I only used one pack of yeast and it is now fermenting. However, I think I may have misread one of your instructions. I used a muslin (not nylon) bag and tied up the top of the bag after mashing the berries, then put the bag completely inside the fermenting bin. Now the bag keeps ballooning with air and the bag has become far less porous as the juices have soaked into it and is now less like a muslin and more just like a cloth bag and not very permeable. Is this OK? Should I, for example, try to squeeze out the air daily?
Hi
I am thinking of making 20/23 litres of blackberry wine instead of 4.5 that I made last year. To make the 20/23 litres you need 1.8 Kgs of blackberries, 4.5 litres of water etc. therefore do you times this amount by 4 to 5 times to make the larger quantity? Also what is the amount required of all other ingredients such as Camden tablets, yeast etc etc, do you use 4 times amount or just as instructed for the 4.5 litres.
Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated
Kind regards
Ron
Yes multiplying the ingredients to your intended batch size is all that is necessary. You will only need one sachet for 20 – 25 litres as must wine yeasts will reproduce to ferment this amount. All other ingredients you can just multiply for your batch size.
Hi,
I am going to try making 23 litres of this wine for the first time this year. I have a 30 litre Hungarian oak cask and I’m wondering if it is possible to bulk age in this?
Yes, that sounds fantastic. Blackberry is a perfect choice for aging like this.
I am confused by the recipe calling for an airlock on the fermenting bucket – how does this work? I can only use and air lock with my demi johns. My fermenting buckets are either sealed completely by the lid; or breathing slightly by resting the lid on top, but not sealing down.
Many fermenting buckets have a hole drilled in the lid with a rubber grommet to hold an airlock. If you don’t have one then just leave the lid on top as you suggest.
When I was back in blighty, I decided to try making my first ever fruit wine and chose blackberries. As I didn’t have an oak cask to age the wine, but had an oak tree, I decided to debark some oak from the tree and add slivers of oak during the aging process. Also, I used no boiling water in the process.
The end result just blew my socks off. I couldn’t believe it was made from blackberries. The vanilla tannin tones from the oak complemented the finished wine beautifully. I would challenge any wine connoisseur to identify the source fruit. It was just like a high red wine.