Elderberry wine - as perceived by an eccentric obsessive

[rich59]

It is my busy season again. The aim is to make a significant number of single bush elderberry wines so I can in future select the best ones to grow on in quantity and make quality wines in bulk. I know you can mix fruit from loads of bushes, but I find it varies a lot from year to year. My bet it is very largely the bushes I choose. So if I want a reliable wine then I need to be specific about which bushes I use.

There are certainly a lot of differences between the fruit from individual bushes - size and and number of berries, and pattern of ripening together or over a long season. The colour and depth of colour vary:-

Particularly about one bush in 5 or 10 has a much more purple colour (rather than the more usual near black) and the stems stay green and don't go red at all. The juice is much paler and seems to make a ruby coloured wine rather than the red/ purple norm.

Then there is the rare white (well greenish/ yellow really) the counterpart to the white grape. Makes a white wine.

If you stick to conventional bushes - with the black fruit and red coloured fruiting stems then there is quite a range of qualities such as:-

fruitiness - taste or aroma
bitterness - probably tannin
strength of flavour
sweetness
off tastes - some have a rather unattractive vegetable taste.

A really good wine needs a good balance of lots of different qualities. One variety might have it all if I can find it. However, a careful blend is more likely to get the balance right unless I am lucky.

Last year I made just 3 of these single bush wines. They did vary a fair bit in quality and I began to learn some parallels between the taste of the raw fruit and the final wine. The quantities I did was silly! I made only 250ml of each variety from just 4oz of fruit - just enough for a good size glass to pour at a Christmas party to general tasting and appreciation.

This year my openning exploration found 5 suitable bushes and I have now 5 wee bottles bubbling away. I hope to get on 2 or 3 more trips to bring back similar amounts of booty. I wonder how many little samples I can come up with by the end of the season.

I keep careful records of location and also take cuttings to nurture on my allotment should the finished wine score a hit.

 

[PJMCBear]

Now that's dedication. Personally, I'll make about 3 gallon, taking the fruits from many different locations. Okay, sometimes the wines are different, depending on which demijohn they come from, but I've not had a bad one yet.

 

[gregorach]

Hmmm.... I suspect it may be a bit more complicated than that. Exactly what stage of ripening they're at will potentially make a big difference too. I know that grape growers have to test their fruit very regularly during ripening to try and pinpoint the exact moment when the sugar / acid balance is right. And of course the fruit from a single bush will vary year-to-year...

I think tasting probably has a lot to recommend it, if you can develop enough experience. But the ultimate solution is probably going to involve some quantitative chemistry too...

It doesn't seem like a very good year for elderberries up here... Most of the bushes seem to have very little fruit on them.

 

[rich59]

Hmmm.... I suspect it may be a bit more complicated than that. Exactly what stage of ripening they're at will potentially make a big difference too. I know that grape growers have to test their fruit very regularly during ripening to try and pinpoint the exact moment when the sugar / acid balance is right. And of course the fruit from a single bush will vary year-to-year...

Thats the finer tuning once I get the individual varieties nailed down. Grape wine makers would always start from named varieties.

I do have big ambitions - to get into big/ commercial amounts - one day. It's my escape plan from my office job!

The first time I ever made elderberry wine it was a smasher and I have never been able to get even close since. So I want to find a reliable formula.

 

[gregorach]

I still think it would be worth doing some basic chemistry, even at the early stage. If you're not measuring the acidity of you must or wine, then you don't know whether it's varying or not.

Perhaps I'm just enthusiastic on this point because I've just bought an acid test kit myself... Turns out my current batch of strawberry wine is too acidic. I suspected that from the taste, but it's good to be able to quantify it.

 

[gregorach]

Oh, and I know what you mean about ambitions... I keep trying to figure out what sort of quantities I'd need to be commercially viable, and coming up with numbers that I don't like.

 

[rich59]

I like the calculation that suggests that I need to be lord of something like 60 acres to have a multi million pound turnover. But whether there is profit in it............

 

[British Red]

The problem with wine making is, of course, the taxation element. I live on the chalk and am lucky to be able to visit regularly some good English vineyards, but grapes from them and experiment with lots of wild mines, meads, etc.

I think there is, without a doubt, a market for it. Mead commands a premium UK price and I believe a number of other products would too. A good elderflower champagne for example, It would be great to also look into the costs on sale prices of non-alcoholic products. The price of balckberries in supermarkets springs to mind. Cordials, chutneys etc. also have a place. Ideally I think a vlaue chain is needed. Bees to pollinate and replace sugar, elder trees and blackberry bushes (both of which require minimal labour) - growing an organic metheglin, sidelines in beeswax polish etc.

Maybe even some sugar maples - that would be fun!

Red